LISTENING, SHARING, DOING AND HEALING
Beginning a Sacred Conversation about Race
Sermon for May 18, 2008
Gen 1:1-2; 4a; 26-27; 31a; 2 Cor. 13:11-13; Matt 28:16-20
My dear brothers and sisters, today is a special day in the United Church of Christ; it is the day that many churches in our denomination are beginning a SACRED CONVERSATION ON RACE. It is also Trinity Sunday; however, I have chosen to focus on race and will use the scriptures chosen for this Sunday to elucidate some of the thoughts I will be sharing with you. Today’s sermon will indeed be a very personal one. As many of you know my first husband, Roland Luckett, whom I married in 1964 was an African American from Jackson Mississippi. Some of you have met our biracial children, Jason and Josslyn. I will share with you some of the experiences I have had being part of a biracial family.
I see two important points in the Genesis reading that pertain to our focus: 1) God made humankind (literal translation, earthlings) in God’s image; and 2)God saw everything that he had made and pronounced it very good.
While there is nothing in the Genesis creation story mentioning race or ethnicity, the claim that all humans were created in God’s image does point to equality. However, in the history of race relations in our country, this equality has not been present. People of African descent have often been considered less than human; our early constitution specified that those people not free, in other words African slaves, who were then called Negroes, would be counted as 3/5’s of a person.
Now to go to our Gospel lesson in Matthew, we hear Jesus telling his followers to make disciples of all nations. What was Jesus’ conception of all nations? From the names cited in Matthew, there would be Palestine, Transjordan, Syrophoenicia and possibly Egypt, certainly Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Romans.(Norman Gottwald and Laura Lagerquist-Gottwald, “Lectionary Readings for Trinity Sunday with Resources for a Sacred Conversation on Race, May 18, 2008”) As far as we know there was not a lot of racial animosity and prejudice in the ancient worlds; however, there was animosity between various political and religious groups, much of it based on class and gender; there were slaves but instead of these people being slaves because of their race, they were usually slaves because of economic problems or because of being captured in battles. There was also a prejudice of the able bodied against the disabled and those with diseases such as leprosy. We hear again and again in the gospels how much separation and division existed, and we also hear how Jesus, again and again, would break through the stigma that separated people. The stories of the tax collectors, the Good Samaritan, the Woman at the well, the lepers are few of the more familiar ones. The early Christian church followed Jesus’ examples of inclusion, not exclusion.
Sadly, in modern times there is a history of colonialism, slavery, and militarism that has fueled more and more discrimination, perpetuating and sadly reinforcing oppression of people based on skin color, national origin, ethnicity—Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and most recently Middle Easterners. In the days of slavery in this country, the notion that African Americans were less than human made it okay to deny them freedoms: their right to maintain families, earn a livelihood, or even a right to life. So much of racism in this country is rooted in a 400 year-old system of economic exploitation that continues even today. At this point I want to make a differentiation between prejudice and racism. All racial groups have prejudice, stereotypes associated with different racial groups; however, racism, as with all isms such as capitalism, socialism, etc. is a system that has power. Our power brokers--political, economic, and religious--have for a long time been white males and are just recently in this country becoming more diverse. Blacks in this country have not had the power to do such things as racially profile whites, deny housing or jobs to whites, in the way that whites can do these things to blacks. This is what I’m talking about when I speak of racism, This racism has definitely been part of our Christian faith—for a radical example think Ku Klux Klan. It’s always amazing to me to see how much prejudice and hatred is justified by one’s religion. Jesus’ compassion for the poor and the marginalized, his command that we love even our enemies, is in my mind so contrary to what Christians have done over the centuries. We all have our blind spots, our irrationalities and if we are to have a sacred conversation about race it’s important that we listen to others, share our own stories, and then figure out a plan of action that we can take that will contribute to abolishing racism in both those places close to us and in the larger world.
When I think about the stories that have defined my attitudes about race, I have to go back to my family of origin and the place where I lived as do most people. As most of you know, I grew up in a small town in Maine, not too different from Deering. My family was middle class, early settlers in the town, owned a lot of property, ran a small seasonal hotel and were very prejudiced. Early on I heard derogatory comments about Jews, Negroes and even Roman Catholics. Anyone that was not like us, was inferior and someone with whom I should not to be in close relationship. I remember at about age 12 having a crush on a boy staying at our hotel whose name was Peter Brady. My mother quickly discouraged the crush saying that I could never marry anyone like that—he was Irish and Catholic, beneath us. To me these prejudices didn’t make any sense, especially as I got more involved with reading the Bible, where it seemed to me that God created all equally, and Jesus said to love our neighbor as our self, not specifying religion, race, class, etc.
Growing up I did not have contact with black people except when I went into Portland, the closest big city and would occasionally see a black woman running the elevator in one of the fancy department stores. As a teenager, probably 13 or 14, I went to a summer camp on Lake Winnepesaukee and met two blacks, one a minister and leader of the camp and the other, a boy of my age named Jesse Owens Perry. Jesse and I became special friends and continued writing to each other for a few years. When I was 15, I heard about Emmet Till, a northern black youth visiting in Mississippi who was killed for making a wolf whistle and saying, “bye Baby” to a female white store employee. That incident I believe was a beginning of my heightened interest and resolve to work for civil rights. Then the summer I was 19, back home from college, I had a job at a nearby institution for the mentally retarded. That same summer there were a group of young people from around the country working there from the American Friends Service program. That was when I met Roland. He was a very charismatic young man, and we quickly realized that we were attracted to each other. My parents didn’t forbid me to date him, yet were very critical, saying it wasn’t right because of the difference in our races. On our dates that summer we ran into a lot of stares and some negative comments, all of which made Roland very anxious. His history of discrimination in Mississippi caused him to know the terrible things that happened when races mixed, especially in a romantic way. Until 1967 when the Supreme Court overturned the Loving case of the marriage of a black woman and white man, most Southern states had what were called antimiscegenation laws, forbidding interracial marriages. The judge that tried the original case of the Lovings gave them a choice of a year in jail or move to another state. He said, Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix . (Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 388 US. 1 (1967).)
Well, Roland and I continued our courtship for two years with letters and phone calls and a couple of visits. After graduating from the U. of Maine, I went to graduate school in Hawaii where Roland was stationed at Tripler Army Hospital. After two years of courtship in a multi-racial atmosphere, we were married and a year later, Jason our son was born. We moved to California when Jason was a year old and were blessed with a daughter, Josslyn. Those of you that have met my children know how lucky I am to have such loving adults in my life. Both have suffered from being black and sometimes from being white. Let me just share a few examples: The children grew up in a very white suburb of Orange County, CA, and Jason had many experiences of not being allowed to date his white friends once their parents realized he was biracial. He was stopped by police while walking in our neighborhood as they didn’t think he lived there; because he was black, he must be up to some mischief. When the children went off to college and were around more African Americans, they were sometimes discriminated for their whiteness, not sounding like or looking like the black students. Just in the last year, Jason told me the story of being followed by security when he was shopping in a drug store in a primarily white neighborhood with no evidence other than he was black. By the way it’s really hard to call a biracial person white, but no problem calling him black which goes back to the old “one drop” rule , which came out of the American South, meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black.
Well, there are many more stories I could tell you about my own experiences, but I want plenty of time for us all to share after the service. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he urges followers to put thing in order, agree with each other, and to live in peace. Here in this country that means taking on the racial realities of our life together, acting together to change the way our lives are structured, eliminating discrimination which comes both from structural racism and individual prejudice. We have to be aware and understand our different realities shape how we see ourselves and each other. I believe that by confronting the pain and committing ourselves to the common good of all, we can be healed and will flourish as a church and as a nation. May God guide and bless us. Amen
Sermon for May 18, 2008
Gen 1:1-2; 4a; 26-27; 31a; 2 Cor. 13:11-13; Matt 28:16-20
My dear brothers and sisters, today is a special day in the United Church of Christ; it is the day that many churches in our denomination are beginning a SACRED CONVERSATION ON RACE. It is also Trinity Sunday; however, I have chosen to focus on race and will use the scriptures chosen for this Sunday to elucidate some of the thoughts I will be sharing with you. Today’s sermon will indeed be a very personal one. As many of you know my first husband, Roland Luckett, whom I married in 1964 was an African American from Jackson Mississippi. Some of you have met our biracial children, Jason and Josslyn. I will share with you some of the experiences I have had being part of a biracial family.
I see two important points in the Genesis reading that pertain to our focus: 1) God made humankind (literal translation, earthlings) in God’s image; and 2)God saw everything that he had made and pronounced it very good.
While there is nothing in the Genesis creation story mentioning race or ethnicity, the claim that all humans were created in God’s image does point to equality. However, in the history of race relations in our country, this equality has not been present. People of African descent have often been considered less than human; our early constitution specified that those people not free, in other words African slaves, who were then called Negroes, would be counted as 3/5’s of a person.
Now to go to our Gospel lesson in Matthew, we hear Jesus telling his followers to make disciples of all nations. What was Jesus’ conception of all nations? From the names cited in Matthew, there would be Palestine, Transjordan, Syrophoenicia and possibly Egypt, certainly Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Romans.(Norman Gottwald and Laura Lagerquist-Gottwald, “Lectionary Readings for Trinity Sunday with Resources for a Sacred Conversation on Race, May 18, 2008”) As far as we know there was not a lot of racial animosity and prejudice in the ancient worlds; however, there was animosity between various political and religious groups, much of it based on class and gender; there were slaves but instead of these people being slaves because of their race, they were usually slaves because of economic problems or because of being captured in battles. There was also a prejudice of the able bodied against the disabled and those with diseases such as leprosy. We hear again and again in the gospels how much separation and division existed, and we also hear how Jesus, again and again, would break through the stigma that separated people. The stories of the tax collectors, the Good Samaritan, the Woman at the well, the lepers are few of the more familiar ones. The early Christian church followed Jesus’ examples of inclusion, not exclusion.
Sadly, in modern times there is a history of colonialism, slavery, and militarism that has fueled more and more discrimination, perpetuating and sadly reinforcing oppression of people based on skin color, national origin, ethnicity—Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and most recently Middle Easterners. In the days of slavery in this country, the notion that African Americans were less than human made it okay to deny them freedoms: their right to maintain families, earn a livelihood, or even a right to life. So much of racism in this country is rooted in a 400 year-old system of economic exploitation that continues even today. At this point I want to make a differentiation between prejudice and racism. All racial groups have prejudice, stereotypes associated with different racial groups; however, racism, as with all isms such as capitalism, socialism, etc. is a system that has power. Our power brokers--political, economic, and religious--have for a long time been white males and are just recently in this country becoming more diverse. Blacks in this country have not had the power to do such things as racially profile whites, deny housing or jobs to whites, in the way that whites can do these things to blacks. This is what I’m talking about when I speak of racism, This racism has definitely been part of our Christian faith—for a radical example think Ku Klux Klan. It’s always amazing to me to see how much prejudice and hatred is justified by one’s religion. Jesus’ compassion for the poor and the marginalized, his command that we love even our enemies, is in my mind so contrary to what Christians have done over the centuries. We all have our blind spots, our irrationalities and if we are to have a sacred conversation about race it’s important that we listen to others, share our own stories, and then figure out a plan of action that we can take that will contribute to abolishing racism in both those places close to us and in the larger world.
When I think about the stories that have defined my attitudes about race, I have to go back to my family of origin and the place where I lived as do most people. As most of you know, I grew up in a small town in Maine, not too different from Deering. My family was middle class, early settlers in the town, owned a lot of property, ran a small seasonal hotel and were very prejudiced. Early on I heard derogatory comments about Jews, Negroes and even Roman Catholics. Anyone that was not like us, was inferior and someone with whom I should not to be in close relationship. I remember at about age 12 having a crush on a boy staying at our hotel whose name was Peter Brady. My mother quickly discouraged the crush saying that I could never marry anyone like that—he was Irish and Catholic, beneath us. To me these prejudices didn’t make any sense, especially as I got more involved with reading the Bible, where it seemed to me that God created all equally, and Jesus said to love our neighbor as our self, not specifying religion, race, class, etc.
Growing up I did not have contact with black people except when I went into Portland, the closest big city and would occasionally see a black woman running the elevator in one of the fancy department stores. As a teenager, probably 13 or 14, I went to a summer camp on Lake Winnepesaukee and met two blacks, one a minister and leader of the camp and the other, a boy of my age named Jesse Owens Perry. Jesse and I became special friends and continued writing to each other for a few years. When I was 15, I heard about Emmet Till, a northern black youth visiting in Mississippi who was killed for making a wolf whistle and saying, “bye Baby” to a female white store employee. That incident I believe was a beginning of my heightened interest and resolve to work for civil rights. Then the summer I was 19, back home from college, I had a job at a nearby institution for the mentally retarded. That same summer there were a group of young people from around the country working there from the American Friends Service program. That was when I met Roland. He was a very charismatic young man, and we quickly realized that we were attracted to each other. My parents didn’t forbid me to date him, yet were very critical, saying it wasn’t right because of the difference in our races. On our dates that summer we ran into a lot of stares and some negative comments, all of which made Roland very anxious. His history of discrimination in Mississippi caused him to know the terrible things that happened when races mixed, especially in a romantic way. Until 1967 when the Supreme Court overturned the Loving case of the marriage of a black woman and white man, most Southern states had what were called antimiscegenation laws, forbidding interracial marriages. The judge that tried the original case of the Lovings gave them a choice of a year in jail or move to another state. He said, Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix . (Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 388 US. 1 (1967).)
Well, Roland and I continued our courtship for two years with letters and phone calls and a couple of visits. After graduating from the U. of Maine, I went to graduate school in Hawaii where Roland was stationed at Tripler Army Hospital. After two years of courtship in a multi-racial atmosphere, we were married and a year later, Jason our son was born. We moved to California when Jason was a year old and were blessed with a daughter, Josslyn. Those of you that have met my children know how lucky I am to have such loving adults in my life. Both have suffered from being black and sometimes from being white. Let me just share a few examples: The children grew up in a very white suburb of Orange County, CA, and Jason had many experiences of not being allowed to date his white friends once their parents realized he was biracial. He was stopped by police while walking in our neighborhood as they didn’t think he lived there; because he was black, he must be up to some mischief. When the children went off to college and were around more African Americans, they were sometimes discriminated for their whiteness, not sounding like or looking like the black students. Just in the last year, Jason told me the story of being followed by security when he was shopping in a drug store in a primarily white neighborhood with no evidence other than he was black. By the way it’s really hard to call a biracial person white, but no problem calling him black which goes back to the old “one drop” rule , which came out of the American South, meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black.
Well, there are many more stories I could tell you about my own experiences, but I want plenty of time for us all to share after the service. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he urges followers to put thing in order, agree with each other, and to live in peace. Here in this country that means taking on the racial realities of our life together, acting together to change the way our lives are structured, eliminating discrimination which comes both from structural racism and individual prejudice. We have to be aware and understand our different realities shape how we see ourselves and each other. I believe that by confronting the pain and committing ourselves to the common good of all, we can be healed and will flourish as a church and as a nation. May God guide and bless us. Amen
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 7:01 AM
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