“Do You Not Care That We Are Perishing?” Rev. Melissa St. Clair, 6/21/15
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https://heartoftherockies.org/wp-content/uploads/_file_mp3/719588-65c31a0f.mp3“Do You Not Care That We Are Perishing?”
A sermon preached at
Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Fort Collins, CO
by the Rev. Melissa St. Clair
June 21, 2015
Many of you know that this week, I made a quick trip to Kansas City to celebrate the retirement of the senior pastor of the first church I served after I graduated seminary. It was a reunion with colleagues and congregants, with some barbeque and jazz thrown in.
My host was a couple from that congregation that I’ve stayed in touch with as friends over the years. (Mine was a two-year associate minister residency position, so the congregation knew they’d say goodbye to me as one of their pastors from the get-go.) He’s an active and faithful servant of the church; she’s a commissioned minister whose ministry is ever-evolving.
Over Wednesday’s lunch, we caught up on what had been going on at the church. After the Sandy Hook massacre, she helped facilitate a class about gun violence, which lead to research about how churches were responding to Missouri’s ever-changing gun laws. She became convicted that it was important to make signs for the doors of the church reminding all who entered that the church building was to be a place of peace where weapons were not welcome.
“Surely you’ve felt threatened at some point,” she said to my colleague and me. “Vulnerable, standing up front like you do during worship.”
In truth, I haven’t. Not once in seven years. My first thought was, “Wow. I’m so naïve. Why did I never think of that before?”
It was a rhetorical question, yet I had my answer by sundown as the news broke of the shooting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It didn’t take long before we heard it reported that the attack was racially motivated.
I’m White. That’s why I’ve had the luxury of never having to think about feeling in danger in the place where I regularly preach, teach, pray, and play. My White body is not seen as a threat to others.
This is risky, what I’m going to preach today. Talking about race in America is as tough as it is tender. I’m asking you to stick with me though, trusting that the place I’m coming from today is one of my own vulnerability and culpability. It’s my own confession.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from jail: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”[1]
At the risk of assuming I’m one of the good people, I can’t be silent any longer.
That said, I recognize that the pulpit is place of privilege and authority, and I take that seriously. Being a pastor means having a lot of jobs, but when I preach my job is to read the text, study it, pray about it and preach the word I think God has for us this week. It seems like a simple process, and yet it’s one that, if I’m honest, I don’t always feel brave enough to do.
Because sometimes that process convicts me to say things that are hard to say, things that I know will make me vulnerable to people who don’t see things the same way I do.
Because preaching sometimes feels more like a monologue than a dialogue, and it’s dialogue that, at its best, can lead us to a place of mutual trust, respect, and genuine growth.
So today, as we read and reflect on Mark’s gospel, this is only a start to what I hope can be an ongoing conversation, one that you feel comfortable enough having with me and with one another. Because it matters.
On that day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, [the disciples] took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.
Two weeks ago, at the orientation for the Search Team for our next Central Rocky Mountain Region Executive Regional Minister, anti-racism training was part of our preparation for the task at hand.
We were asked to stand in two circles – a smaller one on the inside and a larger one on the outside. The inside circle faced the outside circle, so we each were standing face-to-face with someone in the circle opposite us. After each question, one circle would rotate so we had a new conversation partner each time.
Every question had the same baseline – what is the first thing you remember learning about people who are…
We started with Asian.
Then Native American.
Then White.
I had plenty to share the first two rounds, but I got stuck on the third. What messages was I given about White people? I couldn’t think of any.
It’s not because they don’t exist. It’s because it’s the air I breathe. I don’t have to think about it. I’ve never been confronted about my Whiteness. I’ve never been told, explicitly or implicitly, that I couldn’t do something because I am White. I’ve never noticed being treated differently than the person in line before me who was a different color than me. (Although I realize now that if the person in front of me was a person of color, there’s a good chance I was treated differently.)
But [Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
I’m in the boat and the storm is raging, and I am sleeping through it because I can’t feel it, even though I am the one who, by virtue of my privilege as a White person, has the power to do something about it.
Jesus said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
While I’m confessing, I’ll admit that I don’t know what the next steps are. I don’t know exactly how to get across to the other side of the sea, how we get from where we are now to the place we need to be; to a place of authentic reconciliation.
More often than not, I’m afraid I’ll say or do the wrong thing. I’m realizing now that that fear can’t stop me from trying. I’ll share with you today a few ideas from what I’ve read and heard, and what I believe to be true about the one we know as the Christ.
Look around. The reconciling work we have to do is shaped by where we live, work, and play. Jesus spent most of his ministry in Galilee, the region in which he was raised. The disciples did likewise with their ministries. We don’t have to go to the places we’ve seen on TV to make a difference. Even in a city that seems as homogenous as ours, there are prejudices and inequalities to be overcome.
Speak up. I can use my privilege as a White person to say something when I see inequality between how I’m being treated and how someone else is being treated. Just to name an injustice out loud is powerful. (And potentially irritating to those around you. See: The Pharisees and the Herodians, who know this all too well thanks to this Jesus fellow.)
Identify what angers you. Anger isn’t a bad emotion. In fact, when used in constructive ways, it can solve problems. We are often angered to action. Not long before he and the disciples make their trip across the stormy Sea of Galilee, Jesus is in the synagogue, where he encounters a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees are watching and waiting, ready to prey on Jesus’ decision on whether or not to heal the man. It’s the Sabbath, after all, a day when it was unlawful to do so. Jesus gets fed up. Mark writes, “He looked around at [the Pharisees] with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart.” And Jesus promptly restores the man’s hand. Even anger, used properly, has the capacity to heal (Mark 3:1-6).
Come to terms with our own biases. Part of our history as a nation is institutionalized racism. It creeps in ways we might not even identify as such. I’m 99% sure there was more than one time in high school when I referred to something as being “ghetto.” And I’ve surely never called anyone out for accusing someone of pulling the “race card.” Even in the past few weeks, there have been countless times when I’ve scrolled past a news story of yet another unarmed black life being taken by a person in a position of authority and power and said nothing about it to anyone.
Know whose work it is. The burden to educate me as a White person about race and racism should not fall to my sisters and brothers of color. It’s not the responsibility of my friends of color to hold my hand and lead me to the books and resources available to all of us to learn more about the history of race in America. I can Google and use a library and discern what resources are credible and helpful; I can help others do the same.
It is my responsibility to listen when people of color share their experiences of being discriminated against without becoming defensive or trying to “whitesplain” the situation away.
It is my responsibility to show up in spaces where people of other races are present, when I’m welcome to do so.
In our nation, people of color live life in the midst of a storm that they cannot simply step away from or out of. As a White person, I have the privilege of seeing the storm from the outside, and stepping away from it when I choose. I can get out of the boat when the water seems rough. I can walk away if I start feeling seasick.
Speaking of the storm. You’ll remember this good news: It’s Jesus who is on the boat in the midst of it. It’s Jesus who is standing next to those who have been weathering it for a long, long time.
And my job, plain and simple, is to follow Jesus.[2]
________
There are many articles and blog posts I used in preparing this sermon. The more I read throughout the weekend, the more they started to run together in my mind. Here’s a short list:
- Facebook comment from Molly Shira 6/21/15
- White Christian Allies, Talk About Race From Your Pulpits, Reverend Emma Akpan, Huffington Post.
- When Praying for Charleston Doesn’t Feel Good Enough, Akirah Robinson, Huffington Post.
[1] Excerpt from Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
[2] Emily Scott, Preaching While White: This Sunday’s Lectionary and Emanuel AME. Full post here. Posted June 19, 2015.