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Be the Church: Reject Racism

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This is one of those sermons that needed to be written, and re-written, over and over several times during the course of the week. There were just so many jumping off points, so many interconnections. By Friday evening I had the reflection done, but then events and conversations led to something else. So yep. Rewritten.

I kept going back to a comment made by the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, III, who is the pastor of Trinity UCC—an unapologetically black congregation in Chicago. Moss stated that “God acts in extravagant diversity.”[1]

Extravagant diversity. I look around our community, our world, from nature, to people, to the smallest molecular substrates, to the great cosmos around us and embrace that great Truth: God does act in, and with, extravagant diversity.

God also sets up the Divine Plumb Line. A straight, “world-marking” line. This is the Divine Plumb Line of Truth, the moral ethic we should not cross. I look around once again and hear God’s words, “they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way (2:6b-7a)… I, God, will set a plumb line in the midst of my people” (7:7-8).

These are the words Amos, who lived in the 8th century BCE (nearly 3,000 years ago), and his predictions continue to resonate in throughout time. Writing about the prophet, Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev notes that, “The vividness of an image points to possibilities that rational analysis cannot foresee… in the presence of the high priest and the community Amos pronounces his vision of a God who stands atop a wall… (and) proclaims that the social and religious structures that look like sturdy walls are not upright and will soon fall.”[2]

Not upright, and will soon fall. People of God—in our community, in the United States, around the world—in 2019, look around. What do you see?

I see… Amos. He was a rural farmer from a country across the southern border, who goes north, crosses into Israel, and confronts the powers that economically and politically oppress the people. Otis Moss points out that, “God can speak through whomever God desires… by any means necessary.”[3]

I see Amos… and I see the Samaritan.

800 years after Amos lived, in our second reading this morning, it was now the Roman Empire that quashed the lives of the people. Jesus’ parable is an example of God’s vision of extravagant diversity and radical hospitality. This is God, working along the margins. Speaking through, acting through, whomever God desires. By any means necessary. Even {gasp} a Samaritan.

God says, “I am using this measuring line to show that my people… do not measure up” (Amos 7:8b). Through the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus sets up another Plumb Line of Truth, a moral ethic we should not, and must not, cross.

Ok, let’s take a moment and backtrack just a bit. Whether you were raised in a household that went to church every Sunday, or if as a child you did not go to church very often (if at all), or if you are (or were) a part of another faith tradition, the story of the Good Samaritan is embedded in our American culture. Most people, in the case of a medical emergency if they are able, want to help. Many states have enacted “Good Samaritan” laws. And of course, even beyond medical emergencies, we like to think of ourselves as good, helpful, compassionate people.

We are… you are… I am… really good… helpful… compassionate people. Yet sometimes the culture in which we are immersed keeps us from seeing what is really there—who is really there—and who is hurting. Especially if we are a part of the dominate culture.

Yet we know down deep inside that there IS a plumb line that God has erected—a line of extravagant love revealed through the diversity of humankind, and radical hospitality. But for centuries, our political leaders, our economic systems, our churches… and yes, even us… have crossed that upright line through systemic racism. This is racism that has effectively been woven into the institutions of our society. And for those of us who are a part of the dominate, white culture, like I am, it can be difficult to see. To talk about racism can make us uncomfortable.

Our siblings who are black, and brown, and yellow, and red, and all the wonderful, diverse colors with which God has loving formed each person—People of God, our siblings are hurting. Like the man in Jesus’ parable, they have been beaten up, and left behind. Systemic racism is in our political systems, court system, economic structures, and persists in our schools.

Racism is embedded in the detention centers, not only at our country’s southern border, but around the country. I look around and once again, and the words of Amos echo in my mind. Amos shows up in our midst and “pronounces his vision of a God who stands atop a wall… (and) proclaims that the social and religious structures that look like sturdy walls are not upright and will soon fall.”[4]

Walls. Will. Soon fall.

Yet there is “good news” here. The good news that the prophets—and Jesus—purposefully told their stories to discomfort their listeners. These are stories that would have caused gasps in the crowd. And they are stories that have the power to change the way things are.

In Amos’ time… Ward-Lev reminds us that, “The historical period of the prophets, from around 740 to 520 BCE, was a time of shattering social crisis and political instability that ultimately led to the destructions of both Israel and Judah… the imposition of heavy taxes and harsh debtor laws allowed wealthy elites to seize the lands of small farmers… (but) the prophets would not turn aside from this human suffering.”[5]

Centuries later, in Jesus’ time, there had been long standing tensions between the Jewish community and their neighbors the Samaritans. In those days, as the people listened to Jesus, they would have known that when Jesus introduced the character of the Samaritan, you would not want to be the Samaritan.

And then suddenly… Gasp! What? A Samaritan does somethinggood? Over-the-top… good?

How might we retell these stories in a way that would cause US to gasp at the Good News in a way changes the world? What do we need to do so that the walls of racism finally come tumbling down?

The Rev. William Barber, an African-American pastor, has said that in regard to systemic racism, we are currently “dealing with demons as old as America.” He goes on to list voter suppression, prison spending, our broken healthcare system and the people that die due to poverty, and our current state of military economics as some of the evils that run rampant in the United States today.[6]

In what ways is Jesus leading us to step into new places and to gasp, at least just a little?

For at least the past year and a half, at Memorial UCC, the ways in which we Be the Church together has included multiple opportunities through which we have studied the need to reject racism. We have gathered together for a study on white privilege, and the book group read Dear White Christians. Several people in the congregation participated in the course Black History for a New Age hosted by Justified Anger. In the fall of 2018, some people in the congregation helped with get out the vote efforts.

More recently, we held church-wide opportunities to learn about the Doctrine of Discovery. Then on June 9, members and friends of Memorial UCC went to Black River Falls to worship with the HoCak UCC.

So my question for us as a faith community today is—In regards to rejecting racism, what’s next?

Ward-Lev suggests that, “Listening to people who have suffered oppression inevitably leads to mourning—mourning the many lives lost, scarred, traumatized… Uprooting oppression in our society requires a process of truth and reconciliation that begins with acknowledging the enormity of the loss suffered by oppressed people, an acknowledgment that starts with listening and mourning… Acknowledgment must be followed by sustained action.”[7]

To which Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

And God says, “I am using this measuring line to show that my people… do not measure up”

Ward-Lev calls on us to notice that “voice within us (which) calls out, ‘This is wrong and cannot stand. We yearn for a world where all can flourish.”

For “God acts in extravagant diversity.”

See the plumb line. The demarcation of Truth.

And then go. Show mercy. Go today, and do likewise.

Amen.

~Pastor Kris

Reflection on Amos 2:4-7b, 7:7-15 and Luke 10:25-37 offered on July 14, 2019


[1] Moss, III, Otis, Rev. Dr. Lecture, Festival of Homiletics, Minneapolis, May 15, 2019.

[2] Ward-Lev, Nahum. The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019.184.

[3] Moss, III, Otis, Rev. Dr. Lecture, Festival of Homiletics, Minneapolis, May 15, 2019.

[4] Ward-Lev, Nahum. The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019.184.

[5] Ward-Lev, Nahum. The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019. 5.

[6] Barber, William , Rev. Dr. Lecture, Festival of Homiletics, Minneapolis, May 13, 2019.

[7] Ward-Lev, Nahum. The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019.160.

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