Racism in the Church

I once heard a woman say, "I'm not a racist; I just don't like Filipinos."  She was not joking, and she did not pick up on the fact that the second part of her statement completely negated the first part. She had no idea that she was the very definition of a racist.  It was bad enough that she said it and meant it, but it made it even worse that she was also a longtime ruling elder in a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation.  We Presbyterian (USA) folks pride ourselves on being inclusive, sensitive, and diverse.  In this area, I think we've done better than a lot of other branches of the Christian family tree when it comes to our national policies, but my experience "on the front lines" of pastoral ministry has been that these policies have not changed what really needs to be changed: people's hearts.  When I say "people's hearts" I'm not talking about people outside the church.  I'm talking about the hearts of Christians.

Just a day or two ago a 21-year-old white man attended a Wednesday night prayer meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina.  After about an hour, he stood up and said, "I'm here to shoot black people" and then he did what he had come to do.  Nine people, nine beloved children of God, nine of our brothers and sisters in Christ, died in this hate-filled man's effort to "start a race war."  It is coming out that the murderer was an avowed white supremacist.  He seems to have been motivated not by mental illness but by a societal illness and an illness of the heart and soul: hate.  It does not appear that he hated Christians; it appears only that he hated black people.  My guess would be that the only reason he went to a prayer meeting to kill black people is that he knew enough about Christians to know that a white person would be accepted into a prayer meeting of black Christians.  In many other contexts he might have been excluded or viewed with deep suspicion.  But everyone is welcome in the circle of prayer.  "Come on in, brother."  Perhaps some of those who were praying thought, "Wow, we're really making progress in building bridges with our neighbors."  Maybe they thought that before their neighbor shot them to death. 

It is scary to think that a violent racist could walk in from outside the church to kill people inside the church.  That frightens me.  But I'm not sure how much I can do about the racism of those outside the church.  My concern at this point is the racism that exists inside the church, even within my beloved Presbyterian Church (USA). Over my years of experience in many different congregations, I have been in church meetings during which racist statements have been made by leaders of the church without a second thought.  "We can't hire that company to do the work on the building.  They'll just hire a bunch of Mexicans to do it."  I have visited parishioners (also officers of the church) in the hospital who have told me that they didn't like the hospital they were in because "all the nurses are colored here."  Yes, in the 21st Century they used the word "colored."  Although it doesn't involve race, I have heard church leaders say derogatory things about women ("That's why we shouldn't have lady preachers, because all they do is cry.") and people who are gay and lesbian (completely out of context: "It could be worse; we could live in San Francisco with all the gays.") These are Christian people, and not just Christian people but leaders in the church, and not just in any church but in the PC(USA).  I have heard these things in churches not just in South Carolina, but in Oklahoma, in Louisiana, and in Ohio, which I have found to be just as racist as anywhere I've lived in the South.

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in the area of the world then known as Galatia he felt the need to say, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."  The fledgling Christian communities in Galatia were having trouble understanding exactly what was the indicator that they belonged to the people of God.  Paul is telling them that Christ is the indicator that they belong to the people of God. They have been "clothed with Christ" rather than clothed with their race or economic status or gender. Paul's statement was so revolutionary that even he doesn't seem to have been able to live it out entirely (see 1 Timothy 2:12).  But just because he didn't live it out perfectly (which has had tragic repercussions for women in the church for 2,000 years) doesn't mean that the revolutionary statement is not true.  Galatians 3:28 is a statement about who God in Jesus Christ is.  1 Timothy 2:12 is a statement about who Paul of Damascus is.  What I'm getting at is that we Christians, if we are really clothed with Christ, will "wear our new clothing" by dissolving boundaries between who is "in" and who is "out."  We will still see different shades of skin (nobody is really "color blind" when it comes to people) but instead of using that as a way of dividing people we will celebrate the diversity of God's creation.  There is no place for racism, or classism, or sexism (and I would had "homophobia" as well) in the community of followers of Jesus.

I admit that sometimes I have racist thoughts come into my mind.  But here's what we must do: we must "cut them off at the pass" before those racist thoughts make it from our minds to our hearts.  We do this by identifying them as sin.  Whether those thoughts are the result of the way we were raised, of our surrounding culture, or of very real experiences that we have had in the past, those thoughts are still sin.  We label them as sin and then we repent of those thoughts.  "God please forgive me for thinking that way."  But we have to remember that the word "repent" doesn't mean "say you're sorry."  It means to change, to turn in the opposite direction.  For that we will need God's help.  "Lord, help me to see every person as you see her or him, as your beloved child."  Then we live our lives as forgiven people, open to the Spirit's transformation. Part of this is that we confront our fellow Christians when they say things or act in ways that are racist (or sexist or homophobic, etc.)  And as a pastor, I beg of you not to leave it to the pastor to always confront people.  If someone says something about "those Mexicans" (which usually means any people of Hispanic heritage) or "the blacks" and so on and so forth, you call them on it.  Everybody expects their pastor to be a stickler about these things.  It will have more power coming from "one of their own."

While the victims of the horrific mass murder in Charleston were Christians, we as Christians (even those of us in the open-armed PCUSA) have to come to terms with the fact that we are often a part of our nation's (and world's) problem rather than a part of the solution.  Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas writes, "The Church is constituted as a new people who have been gathered from the nations to remind the world that we are in fact one people.  Gathering, therefore, is an eschatological act as it is the foretaste of the unity of the communion of the saints."  As Christians it is our baptismal vocation (the life purpose given to every person at their baptism), through the power of the Holy Spirit, to live as a community and as individuals that give an example to the world of what God wants humanity to be like in how we relate to God, to ourselves, to one another, and to creation.  So plain and simple, even if we read our Bible every morning, pray several times a day, go to Sunday school and worship, and put money in the offering plate and even give to those in need here and abroad, when we live in racist ways (and other ways that look down upon or mistreat others), we are not living into and out of our baptismal vocation. Perhaps the best Scriptural summary of our baptismal vocation is Colossians 3:17, "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  Anything that is racist cannot be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, therefore anything that is racist is not to be done by those of us who bear his name.

May God grant comfort to the families and friends of the victims, may God do a work in the heart of the murderer so that he may know peace with God and others even as he pays the just consequences for his hateful actions, and may God transform the hearts of the Church so that we are no longer a part of the problem, but an obvious example of God's solution, what Jesus called "the Kingdom of God."

Terror At the Top of the World

As the story goes...

back in the 1600's there was a big push among the Catholics to spread Christianity throughout Asia.  In 1628 a Catholic priest (of the Jesuit order) from Portugal spent some time in Tibet and then showed up in Nepal. Apparently it was the first time anyone in Nepal had ever heard about Jesus or about anything that had to do with this strange "Christian" religion.  The official histories say that this priest, Father Juan Cabral, was welcomed with open arms by the Hindu King Lakshminarasimha Malla (and you thought you had to spell your name for the barista at Starbucks!).  I cannot find anything else about what Father Cabral did or what happened to him after his initial reception by the king.

In the 1660's a couple more Jesuit priests, one from Belgium and another from Austria, came to Nepal but apparently didn't stay very long.  It does not appear that there was any kind of sustained Christian presence in Nepal until 1707 when a small group of Capuchin friars walked into the city of Kathmandu.  Capuchins (the Catholic religious order, not the monkeys) follow a form of Franciscanism.  They were founded back in the early 1500's when a Franciscan friar felt that the Franciscans had gone soft, gotten a bit wimpy in their Franciscanism.  He wanted to found an order that would be as "hardcore" as Francis of Assisi himself.  The small group of Capuchins lived in Nepal for fifty years.  This lasted until a change in government in 1769 forced the very small Catholic Christian community to leave Nepal to find refuge in neighboring India. Christians of all different flavors started showing up again in Nepal in the 1950's and have been around ever since.  My own aunt and uncle were missionaries to Nepal back in the 1980's.  Although Nepal is still almost entirely Hindu, there is still a small Christian minority of between 1% and 2%.

Something interesting about Nepalese Christians is that they worship on Saturday instead of Sunday.  A lot of us think that we have to worship on Sundays but it doesn't say that anywhere in the Scriptures and Jesus never mentioned it.  He just said to gather together, but he never said when to do it.  We have gathered on Sundays over the past 2,000 years for the most part because Jesus was raised from the dead on a Sunday. Yet even a stickler for rules like John Calvin said that even though Sunday should be the default, if another day works better for the vast majority of folks that it just makes sense to worship on a different day. Well, Saturdays make more sense in Nepal because Saturday is the one day of the week that is a government holiday. Most folks have to work on Sunday but they don't have to work on Saturday.  So they worship on Saturdays.  Again, what is important is that we gather to worship, not when we gather to worship. The reason I bring up Saturday worship is that it was during the Saturday Christian worship time just a few days ago that the massive 7.8 earthquake shook the nation, killing at the very least 4,000 people.  Stories are coming out about church buildings collapsing onto worshiping congregations.  One congregation just outside Kathmandu lost 80 worshipers when their rental worship space fell on them.  Because of the concentration of Christians in small spaces at the time of the quake (because they were in worship) it is estimated that even though Christians make up just 1.5% of the population that between 10%-15% of the dead are Christians, that is our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the wake of this horrific natural disaster, Christians are joining with everyone else in coming together not merely as a Christian family but as a human family.  It is important for us to be faithful to God in Jesus Christ at all times, but one of the ways that we are most faithful is by loving our neighbors regardless of who our neighbors happen to be (remember the parable of the Good Samaritan).  No matter what faith (or non-faith) someone claims, that person is created in the image of God, loved by God, and it is a person through whom we can minister to our Lord Jesus Christ (remember the parable of the sheep and goats in Matt. 25).  Love is the language of the Christian and I am proud of our particular group of Christians (the Presbyterian Church (USA)) for reaching out to the suffering in Nepal.  Here is the latest press release from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: "PDA is providing emergency aid through partnership with ACT Alliance.  Members of ACT Alliance which have been working in Nepal for several years are on the ground and already working to assist many who have survived the quake, by distributing immediate lifesaving supplies such as water, food, shelter, and medication."

Please pray for the people of Nepal, no matter what their faith.  Also, though, pray specifically for our Christian brothers and sisters in Nepal.  Pray that in their grief, shock, and fear that the Holy Spirit will comfort them and pray that in the midst of their own suffering that they will reach out to others in Christ's name.  Also, give.  You can do that here at DONATE TO PDA.

May the God of resurrection bring many good things out of something so terribly bad.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Everett

Sunday Morning at the Ballpark

As the story goes...

back in the early 1970's a Detroit sportswriter by the name of Watson Spoelstra noticed that some Major League Baseball players were trying to organize chapel services for their teams on Sunday mornings.  He thought that worship for those who work in professional baseball was important enough that it should be supported in some official way by the league.  He presented this idea to the MLB commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn.  The commissioner approved Spoelstra's proposal and in 1973 Baseball Chapel began.  By 1975 every team offered a chapel service at the ballpark every Sunday morning of the season.  Baseball Chapel spread to the minor leagues in 1978 and now every single MLB-affiliated Minor League ball club has Baseball Chapel on Sunday mornings.

We like to spend a Sunday afternoon at the ballpark.  We saw evidence of this last Sunday when some fortunate members of our church family headed out right at the end of worship to go to watch the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals play.  Our enjoyment of Sunday games, however, means that not just the players, coaches, and umpires, but every single person that works at the ballpark has to be at work on Sunday.  Boo hoo, right? Multi-millionaires have to work on Sundays.  Big deal.  Well, first of all, multi-millionaires are created in the image of God, loved by God, saved by Christ, and in need of worship and Christian community too. Secondly, what about the guy or gal that sells hot dogs and cotton candy?  Lots of people have to work on Sundays these days. We can't complain about people working on Sundays and then expect to be able to eat lunch at a restaurant or fill our car with gas or go shopping a the grocery store on Sundays.  The only reason they have to work--and players have to play--is because you and I value their services on Sundays.  So if they can't go to worship, worship has to go to them.

That being said, too many of us in the church still live in a past during which the vast majority of folks had Sunday off and people could be expected to come to the church's building on Sunday for Sunday school and worship.  We still expect for people to come to us in order to have their lives touched by the gospel and how it is lived out by this community of faith.  Here we are on the corner of Market and Hinde Streets.  The doors are unlocked early on Sunday mornings.  Come to us.  It is time for us, however, to have a reality check and the place to start is with the Scriptures. You see, Jesus didn't tell his disciples, "Find a place to hang out and then people will come from all over the world to hear what you have to say."  Nope. He said, "Go and make disciples of all nations."  The key word is, "GO!"  In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is constantly sending the early church out to spread the gospel, taking the gospel to people, meeting them where they are.  I applaud the folks of Baseball Chapel for doing just that.  

Not one place in the Scriptures does it say that Christians have to meet in a certain place, in a certain building, or even at a certain time.  Worship at a ballpark is just as valid as worship in a cathedral.  Worship in a breakroom in a factory, or in the lounge of a dormitory, or on a submarine, or in a bean field is just as glorifying to God as the pope leading mass at St. Peter's Basilica (and maybe more so depending on the hearts of the participants).  If what we want is to perpetuate the institution of the church as it currently is then it might make sense to sit around waiting for people to come to us.  If what we want to do, however, is what Jesus called us to do, which is spreading the gospel, then we are going to have to follow Baseball Chapel's example and go to them. As A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh books, once wrote, "You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you.  You have to go to them sometimes."