How long O Lord?

As we acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's death, and watch as thousands gather in our nation's capital to re-commit themselves (and possibly to inspire others) to work towards a culture that values people rather than color, I have been thinking about the long road traveled by African Americans, few of whom ended up on these shores voluntarily.

I just finished reading Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S Grant, and I learned some important stuff about that period of history known as Reconstruction.  Somehow I had missed the stories about thousands of white folk who traveled into the post-war south and set up schools to teach newly freed slaves how to read; many were motivated by faith convictions.  Somehow I missed the number of former slaves who not only voted, but who were elected to state legislatures and both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Somehow I missed that schools were integrated in some areas. 


And....somehow I missed the level of violence perpetrated on these new citizens by the defeated states of the Confederacy.  Not isolated violence but wholesale, indiscriminate violence - slaughter - and it was either ignored or sanctioned by the formerly powerful white ruling class.  Over the course of his 8 years in office, Grant repeatedly had to reinforce Army troops in areas of the South to both protect the recently recognized citizens and prevent anarchy.  The modern version of the KKK had nothing on the Reconstruction era version where violence was neither hidden nor condemned and lawless groups of men would ride through town before an election and burn out the former slaves, pulling the men into the streets to execute them.  It took my breath away.  General Lee may have surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, but the Confederacy was determined to re-establish the white ruling class and win by the back door. 

There came a time when the North got tired of defending their black neighbors; Northerners wanted to move on and concentrate on business and commerce.  Then the North turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the cries of the oppressed citizens of our southern states and left them to their own devices.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not the first time our nation addressed the inequity based on race. Enacted on March 1, 1875, the first Civil Rights Act affirmed the "equality of all men before the law" and prohibited racial discrimination in public places a facilities such as restaurants and public transportation.  The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional citing a private citizen's right to discriminate against whomever s/he wanted. Thus set the stage for the next 90 years of Jim Crow, poll taxes, segregated schools and a well entrenched second class citizenship for fellow citizens.

All of this is to say, folks we have been at this for a long time.  First we fought the Civil War, then the Reconstruction war, then the Jim Crow war......and now, isn't it time to allow our African American neighbors to simply be our neighbors?  Our fellow citizens?  White America has benefitted from this system long enough.  Isn't it time to do the hard work required of us?  To confront the attitudes and misconceptions that we unconsciously carry in our hearts? 

Isn't it time to follow Jesus?  To heal the Syro-Phoenecian woman's daughter?  To call the Samaritan a hero?  To eat with the outcast?  To heal the Roman officer's slave? 

To look into the eyes of the other and see God?

A season of rhetoric

According to the book of wisdom, Ecclesiastes, there is a season for every purpose under heaven:  a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time sow and a time to reap.......

What would you call the season we are in right now? We are: knee deep in violence around the world, sweltering under very hot skies with too little rain; listening (or not) to candidates for president; figuring out how to send our children off to camp or college; crippled by a system of race bias......

and if we look into our personal lives, we are mourning the loss of a loved one or celebrating the birth of a new child.  We are worn out by the struggles of aging or parenting or being a teenager.  For some it is a season of healing and for others a season of dying.

Where are we?  Could this be the season of rhetoric?

I chose this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.  Seems no one talks to anyone anymore.  We chant, we demand, we yell, but we don't talk.  We no longer use civilized speech as a path to persuasion or enlightenment.  In fact, I think 'enlightenment' has gone the way of the dodo bird.  There is limited rational conversation and, in fact, I think we have lost our basic 'rational speech' skills.

Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speech.  Or at least that is what it is intended to mean.  Our most common experience of it comes when a very good salesman persuades us that 'this is exactly what you were looking for' when we know that we weren't even looking in the first place but he persuades us that we are!  A good rhetorician puts together examples and images and data in such a way that we follow the argument and even though we still have questions, we are persuaded to look at things in a new way.

In current times we use 'rhetoric' to mean empty, even ideological speech.  There is no attempt made to persuade but rather to cut off debate, and insist on the rightness of our position.  It has become almost a pejorative term which, in the end, points to the use of speech to tell 'the big lie.' If you tell 'the big lie' often enough, it becomes the accepted truth.  Propaganda makes much use of 'the big lie.'

Can we in the faith community take first steps to actually speak with one another without rancor and with a desire to hear - truly hear - what is being said?  Can we begin to accept that the 'truth' to you may not be the 'truth' to me?

One last question.  As much as you bemoan the poor dialogue (or total lack of any dialogue) not taking place, are you willing to sit around a table and slowly, gently begin to talk about the great taboo subjects?

This is risky business.  Are you ready?

In the beginning.........the cross

Christian theology of a Lutheran bent is centered on the cross.  At the cross, where Jesus died a criminal's death, God is present.  At the face of evil, God still reigns. The face of a suffering Jesus is the face of the Creator God of life.  The powers of this world were no match for the power of the Divine Creator even though the symbol of that strength is the weakness of the cross.

There are lots of ways to say it, but, in the end, the cross was not the end, but a step along the pathway.  The end was but a beginning as the Creator God brought all creation to resurrection again.  Yet this cross can never be ignored nor discounted or ....foolishness of all foolishness....considered long ago and far away.

It is before this cross and this Jesus that we stand to confront the system of race relations in our country. Or should I say 'race non-relations.'  Stained by slavery a century and a half ago, interactions between white and black have been skewed.  It is a part of our history, and our society and culture have been built on this long standing reality.  In the final analysis, our system counts black Americans as not only different, but as less.

This is not a situation we have asked for.  We did not cause it.  But it is still there, under it all.  We avoid conversation about it and confession of it because we hate to be held responsible for something we didn't do.  Yet it is this system that has continually privileged our lives, and we do so want to hold onto those privileges even as we deny that they exist.

Some among us will answer, "well that's the way I was taught" as if that is either an explanation or excuse for behavior that clearly divides others into worthy and less worthy.  Some among us will answer, "I always treat others kindly" as if that denies the systematic oppression of an entire race that is quantified by research.

There is a similar problem with white privilege. Some among us will say, "look at where I live.  I'm not privileged." and yet they have never been denied a hotel room, an apartment to rent or steered away from a particular neighborhood by the realtor because of the color of their skin.  Some among us will say, "I worked hard for what I have" without thinking that from the quality of the schools attended, to the internships received, to the job interview that you landed, to the job that was offered, your whiteness was counted as a plus.  We can look at advertising and see all white faces; we can walk into a store and never think about what others are thinking of us (unless you went in your pajamas); we can walk down a street without police thinking we are in the wrong neighborhood.  That is the privilege of our race.

Now let us take that to the cross.  If you can't find the words for confession, even if you don't think that confession is needed, sit quietly before the cross (our cross at Luther Memorial is particularly helpful here) and listen for the Spirit's leading.  That guy up there was targeted because he was the wrong race under the wrong powerful people who ruled his land.  That guy up there was a threat to religious and secular leaders alike and really irritated regular folk like you and me because he taught us that forgiveness was the first step to real wholeness.........and we didn't think we needed to be forgiven.

So we crucified him.  He loved us.  Right there, on the cross.  Where death meets life and God reigns. Where weakness is strength.