My “Call to Community” shared at Auburn University’s Becoming the Beloved Community Vigil for Love and Peace commemorating the 56th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. Many thanks to Rev. Dr. Joan Harrell for the invitation to share alongside so many other wonderful students, community members, and leaders.
April 4, 1967 – one year before Dr. King’s assassination – thousands gathered at Riverside Church in Manhattan to hear Dr. King decry the Vietnam War. In that speech, he connected the movement for Black freedom and civil rights with the global movement for peace and called out the US government as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. How relevant his words still are as our government supplies billions in military aid and weapons to the Netanyahu regime in Israel for its genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza… As urgent and devastating as this situation is, I want to share a call to community based on the title of Dr. King’s speech – “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” – and focus my remarks closer to home.
My name is Joe Davis and I have the privilege of serving alongside Dr. Ashley Brown as a co-director of Lee County Remembrance Project (LCRP) – Dr. Brown sends her greetings. I also serve with Auburn United Methodist Church as director of mission & outreach ministries. I’m a class of 2009 Auburn alumni.
At LCRP, we work to reconcile the racial violence of Lee County by confronting our history of racial terror lynchings and engaging in the public dialogue necessary to overcome its persistent legacy. Our work is inspired by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. I’ve heard EJI’s founder, Bryan Stevenson, describe their work in terms of challenging the “narrative of racial difference” that was fabricated to justify the genocide of indigenous people and later adapted to justify the brutal dehumanization of African people. He talks about how slavery didn’t end – it just keeps evolving – because the narrative – the myth – of racial hierarchy has never been disrupted. And so LCRP strives to embody the wisdom and courage of Ida B Wells who wrote that “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” By commemorating the lives of Black men who were murdered in racial terror lynchings in Waverly – John Moss and George Hart – or in Salem – Samuel Harris – or in Smiths Station – Charles Humphries – or in Opelika – Charles Miller – or, and we’re just getting started with the research on this one, in Auburn – Jake Evans – we shine truth’s bright light upon this destructive narrative to tell a more complete narrative that leads us farther down the path towards peace and love.
But composing this new narrative is not simply a matter of telling more truth as vital as that is. We also need to stop telling lies. Parts of the dominant narrative we keep hearing and repeating are just not true and never have been.
The dominant narrative I have in mind is captured by a line in poem you may have heard before: “Sweet Auburn, the loveliest village on the plain.” This opening line of Oliver Goldsmith’s 18th century poem is a core piece of our community’s founding narrative, and it keeps getting re-told. But, I can tell you from answering my phone in the church office for the past 5 years that it’s just not true when it comes to Auburn, Alabama. Ironically, Goldsmith’s poem criticizes the greed of landlords and the exploitation of tenants that drain the idyllic village of its life. The poem reads like a prophecy because so many of the calls I get are from folks struggling with their housing, especially in Auburn.
When I think about shining a light a truth on this narrative, a question comes to mind: why is it that so many landlords and virtually all of the major property managers in Auburn refuse to accept federal housing vouchers? It’s to the point where 100% of Auburn Housing Authority’s veteran’s supportive housing vouchers are being used in other communities. And half of our emergency housing voucher recipients – homeless individuals and families – use their vouchers somewhere else. What does this say about who exactly this lovely village is for? It’s time to break the silence and ask: who is welcome here – really? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind when I consider this false narrative that has embedded itself into the psyche of our community.
These questions also make me think about the narrative of our church, Auburn United Methodist, and how its history is so intertwined with Auburn’s – both the good and the bad. With our words, we confess that knowing the truth will set us free, but I sometimes wonder how far we’re willing to go to follow through. What would that look like? I think a good first step would be a sustained effort to pursue our own remembrance project to shine truth’s light upon all parts of our history including the times we’ve been complicit with white supremacy or have supported it outright as well as our moments of resistance. My friend and colleague at Auburn UMC, Lindsey Middleton, will be sharing a presentation at the AU Inclusive Excellence conference on April 17 on this topic (registration is free and open to the public). My hope is that by breaking our own silence and changing our ways perhaps we can be set free to help lead our community towards peace and love.
But what about you? How can you break the silence? Where can you shine the light of truth and dedicate yourself to righting wrongs? Your light, your voice, is needed in this struggle.
From Gay St to Gaza, may the light of truth shine in and through us to keep us awake, on vigil, during our journey towards love and peace even while others sleep in willful ignorance.
Have you ever noticed the cars parked along the edges of the TigerTown or Walmart parking lots? There’s a good chance a family lives in one of them; a single mother with a job and children in school but unable to get approved for a lease and without resources for 1st month’s rent and a security deposit. Far too many in our county and across our country suffer amid an affordable housing crisis. As we look to Jesus on the cross today, do we see these families?
Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite authors, wrote a line that floored me the first time I read it: “God has chosen to be revealed in a crucified humanity.” Chosen. God chose. Crucified humanity. Who is that? Where is the crucified humanity today? Do I have the eyes to see God in those places?
Are you familiar with the Darien Gap along the border of Panama and Colombia? I wasn’t aware of this 70 mile stretch of impenetrably dense jungle until I read about how thousands of Haitian migrants, young children, infants, and pregnant mothers among them, are paying smugglers thousands of dollars to get them through it on their journey toward our southern border where they will face degradation, detention, and possibly deportation back to a country in political and economic disarray. They suffer abuse and exploitation in myriads of ways throughout this journey. How desperate would you have to be? They long for the things you and I take for granted each day. Surely, they are part of the crucified humanity through whom God has chosen to be revealed.
Migrants crossing the Darien Gap
As we face the hard truth of our creator and savior Jesus nailed to a cross today, we are reminded of the costliness of God’s grace and love for us. Through Christ crucified, God proclaims for all eternity that there is no length to which God will not go to save us and make us one with God. This cross-shaped love – agape love – is the “good” in Good Friday that we are invited to share with all our neighbors today and every day, especially those who experience suffering.
Prayer: Crucified God, we cry out for new eyes to see your divine image more clearly in the crucified humanity of our community and our world. We pray for a renewed measure of compassion and courage to respond with sacrificial love. In the name of Jesus who sets us free from all our fears, amen.
AL House Bill 312 is anti-gospel because is makes colorblind racism the law of our state. I guess not much has changed in AL since the writing of our 1901 constitution, which was written with the explicit purpose of establishing white supremacy by all means. Sadly, HB 312 is sponsored by my representative Joe Lovvorn, Alabama House District 79 Representative.
HB 312, a colorblind racist law, outlaws sympathy and empathy in every public classroom because colorblindness normalizes and enshrines white privilege as law. It is impossible to practice Christlike love when the law states that you can’t see color, that you can’t see a person’s full identity, that you can’t celebrate differences as God-created good things.
Foley goes on to explain how “the gospel neither distinguished nor dissolved the differences [between Jew & Gentile] but brought [Jew & Gentile] together with the differences intact. Neither was compelled to become the other, only to love the other as each loved themselves. Colorblindness resists this (emphasis mine).”
Pentecost by Jen Norton
There is, therefore, no such thing as a colorblind church, a colorblind body of Christ. Those who would claim such a status are simply affirming their acceptance of a white-privileged status quo that is built on the long history and present day reality of white supremacy. The community of Christ’s body cannot be a white-washed uniformity but is instead called to be a unity-in-diversity. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit filled the believers and everyone heard the good news of God’s kingdom in their own language. The Spirit gives birth to the body of Christ by speaking every tongue instead of speaking in one universal language. The vast cultural differences of the crowd gathered on that day were affirmed and left intact. The Spirit of God that raises Christ from the dead does not create a colorblind fellowship on the basis of fake unity. Instead, a true community is formed where each person’s culture and language are welcomed.
The logic behind HB 312 is anti-Pentecost and anti-Christ because it envisions a society in which whiteness continues to be the norm and standard against which all others are judged. It is an attack on teachers, an attack against our siblings of color, and an attack on the reality of God’s reign coming in Alabama as it is in heaven.
Let’s be clear: colorblindness is not the goal. We need to see color in order to see each person’s full identity and love them the way Christ does. The goal is to see and celebrate our differences without using those differences to discriminate and create hierarchies. Talking or teaching about discrimination according to race, gender, or religion is not divisive. Rather, it helps to reveal the unjust matrix of racialized, gendered, and religious hierarchies that divide us by sustaining white privilege and oppressing our siblings of color. And these unjust hierarchies must be revealed so that they can be dismantled, so that true community, the Beloved Community, can be pursued in our state.
This past Tuesday I attended the city of Auburn City Council meeting to support my friends with the Lee County NAACP in support of their efforts to convince our council of the need for at least 2 minority-majority districts in Auburn’s newly redrawn ward map. According to the 2020 census, almost 37% of Auburn’s population is either Black, Asian American, or Latino. Auburn has 8 wards but only 1 ward consistently elects a non-white councilperson. The city council is considering a map that still only has 1 minority-majority district. The NAACP has presented changes to this map that would create a second minority-majority district, but there has been resistance to this idea.
During the public hearing portion of the meeting, I shared this prayer for the council:
O God, we come before you with gratitude. We thank you for being a God of love who is with us now in this very room. You never leave us or forsake us. Your grace has brought us safe thus far and your grace will lead us home Lord. We thank you for making each of us in this room, every person we meet, every citizen of this city and every city, in your own image, with dignity and infinite worth. We thank you for the calling you have given every one of us to be good stewards of your creation, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
I thank you tonight God for these your servants – our mayor, our city manager, our city staff, and our city council members. I give thanks for the way of service they have chosen to take up on behalf of all of us here. We all come to this room tonight as complex human beings, carrying burdens, carrying joy and hope, trusting that you alone can hold us together O God, in your love and peace. Help us Lord to trust you more. More than our fears and our wounds and even our accomplishments. May we lean on your everlasting arms tonight.
God, in your word you make clear your expectations for those who sit in places of authority. In Psalm 72, we hear the prayer for the king:
Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. May he judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice… May he defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; may he crush the oppressor… For the king will deliver the needy who cry out; the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, in chapter 22, you remind us that your blessing came on kings who “defended the rights of the poor and needy” because “isn’t that what it means to know me? declares the Lord”.
We remember the apostle Paul writing to the Christians in Rome and his teaching that those in authority are first and foremost your servants. That honoring you and doing your will is their highest purpose. That any portion of power they enjoy is given by you and can be taken away.
And so we pray that you would be glorified tonight through the decisions of this city council. We pray that we would have the eyes to see how our lives are all connected and how our common good is upheld when we listen and respond to those most vulnerable among us. We pray that your kingdom would come in Auburn as it is in heaven through your power working in each of these your servants. May your truth be revealed, may your light shine brighter, may the voices of those most silenced be heard loud and clear. Defend their cause O God through this governing body tonight.
We pray for wisdom, for strength, for courage to do what is right & good for all citizens. May we put the interests of others above our own. May we act with love for the common good. May we be good neighbors, recognizing your image in every person here.
We thank you again for this council, our mayor, our city staff, our first responders, our hospital staff and all those who work to make this place we call home such a wonderful city.
In the name of Jesus whose perfect love sets us free from all our fears, amen.
In late 2021, I was given the opportunity to participate in a series of laity equipping laity training videos for the Alabama-West Florida Conference UMC. The videos cover a wide variety of topics including mission & outreach. Here’s my 13 minutes of thoughts on what it means to be a mission & outreach ministry leader with a local congregation. A portion of this comes from the UMC mission & outreach lay leader “job description.” Also a special shoutout to pastor Rich Villodas of New Life Fellowship for his influence on the theological foundations I mention, which are based on his wonderful book, The Deeply Formed Life. The full video script is posted below.
My name is Joe Davis and I serve at Auburn UMC as mission & outreach director. Thank you for saying yes to serving with mission and outreach. Thank you for your commitment to loving God and loving neighbor and for taking this next step of leadership in your congregation. When I think about the role of mission & outreach in the life of the church, I’m inspired by the words of a theologian who wrote: “the church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.” In the same way that a fire must continually burn to fulfill its purpose, our life together as congregations is sustained and enriched as we continually seek to participate in God’s mission for the transformation of the world. And, as a mission and outreach lay leader, you have an essential part to play in igniting and tending the flame of mission in your congregation. I hope this short video sheds some light on what it means to be a mission & outreach team leader and gives you a few next steps to help you get started.
So, before we jump into the nuts and bolts, let’s get started with a quick review of 2 essential theological foundations for mission that pastor Rich Villodas describes in his book, The Deeply Formed Life.
Number One: God is With Us. Throughout the narrative of scripture from creation, through God’s covenant with Israel, to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the pouring out of God’s Spirit at Pentecost, God is always pursuing relationship, always seeking to create new community, always inviting us deeper into the communion of Father, Son, and Spirit. As United Methodists, we name this reality as prevenient grace – the understanding that God is present and active with all of us before we even perceive it. This truth reminds us that mission is not merely something we do to help people – mission is who God is. When it comes to mission, God moves first, God is always ahead of us calling us to follow His lead, always already present and active in the lives of people in every place long before we show up to “do mission.” God’s church does not have a mission to do. No, God’s mission has a church. This truth frees us to let go of our agenda and submit ourselves more fully and completely to God’s will. We are reminded that our church, our community, our world belongs to God and it is not ours to save. Yes, God has called us to play an essential part in his kingdom, but our first missional calling is to humbly seek out God’s presence and God’s work in our lives, our church, and our community.
Number Two: God is For Us. “For God so loved the world, he sent his only son.” God is Love. The mission of God in sending Jesus Christ is a profound expression of the Love that God is. In Luke 4, Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah and says, “The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Good news, freedom, healing, liberation, favor… do you hear how God is for us? Too often, we only see the brokenness in our world and we try to defend ourselves from it, we seek security and comfort, or we try to take control and force change. The world that God so loves can be frightening or even repulsing; the wounds are truly deep and painful; so many suffer from such injustice. But, God is for us – for all people – and God’s mission is one of restoration, redemption, and resurrection. Yes, we live in a fallen world, but before there was original sin in the garden there was original blessing. God created the whole world and called it good. Everything we call mission should flow from this reality.
Now, let’s get a little more practical and talk about the purpose of mission & outreach ministry in your congregation and what it means to be a mission ministry team leader. A full description of this content is available online at umcdiscipleship.org under Missions Ministry Team Leader.
First, what’s the purpose? I think of Jesus’ words to his disciples in Acts 1:8 just before he ascends to heaven. He tells them: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Your congregation’s mission ministry exists to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom through witness and service in your community and maybe even around the world. “Witness and service” includes all types of service by all types of people using all types of gifts. Through your leadership, your congregation will implement a plan for mission service opportunities for all ages and all stages of faith so that people live as Christian disciples transforming the world.
Second, what makes a great mission ministry team leader? A leader’s spiritual gifts are key and nearly any spiritual gift is useful for mission ministry leaders – servanthood, encouragement, leadership, compassion, faith, miracles, administration, helping, and evangelism. A critical qualification is passion for serving, helping others, and responding to the hurts and needs of God’s people in your congregation, community, and the world. Mission ministry leadership requires communicating with a diverse group of people both within and beyond the church walls, an ability to listen with empathy, an openness to different people and new ideas, and the ability to work with and support others with various capabilities and varying degrees of relationship with God and the church.
Third, what kinds of things will you be doing as a mission & outreach team leader?
1. Coordinating the planning and implementation of a comprehensive strategy for involving your congregation in mission
2. Developing a year-round program of mission education
3. Partnering with organizations, people, and resources in and beyond the congregation to pursue your congregation’s mission strategy
4. Guiding the congregation in worship and fellowship that highlights mission with events like mission studies and speakers, observing World Communion Sunday, and regular opportunities to engage in service projects
5. Creating opportunities for sharing in financial giving for mission
6. Working with other lay leaders, church staff, and pastor to support the overall goals of the congregation
As we finish up, I want to share 3 steps for getting started. Actually, each step is the same: listen. Listen to God, listen to your community, and listen to your congregation. Let’s unpack this a little.
First, listen to God. Too often, mission is viewed only as an activity, something we do. We forget that what we do flows out of who we are. I can’t stress enough the importance of your personal spiritual formation as you step into this leadership role. Joining God’s mission of restoration and redemption is the world will be challenging. The people God calls you and your church to love will not always be open and receptive. Life is messy. Your spiritual roots need to run deep to sustain you in this position. Remember, the first theological foundation for mission is God’s presence with us and becoming attuned to God’s presence in the world begins with being attuned to God’s presence in our own hearts and lives. I encourage you to seek out a small group for support and mutual accountability for spiritual formation. Remember, mission belongs to God, so we have to be with God first. Then, our actions for God’s mission can be empowered and enlivened by our relationship with Him.
Second, listen to your community. Seek out answers to questions like: Where is your community thriving? Where is your community hurting? What are your community’s assets and what are its needs? In seeking answers, it is essential to survey a variety of perspectives. Your mayor’s response to these questions will probably be different than the response of a local school principal or the director of a local food pantry. Also keep in mind how Jesus lived: he sought out those most marginalized and excluded and gave them a place of honor. How can your congregation be present with and listen to those who may be hidden from the rest of your community? How will their perspective inform your understanding of God’s work in your community? It’s also important to become very familiar with other organizations, agencies, individuals, and yes, even other churches, who are engaged in helping and serving in your community. Don’t be competitive. Rather, invite others in to learn from them and seek out ways to partner together for God’s kingdom, which is bigger than any one group or church.
Third, listen to your congregation. It is important to know what is already happening with mission and outreach. Does your congregation already have relationships with missionaries or local ministries and organizations? What has been tried in the past? How is mission a part of our discipleship ministries and worship ministries? What is our pastor’s vision for mission? Listening to your congregation can also include surveying the congregation to learn how individuals are gifted, what they are passionate about, topics they want to learn about mission, or how they would like to serve. Another great question to ask is: how does our physical space – our building or property – lend itself to mission?
After engaging in a thorough season of listening, you’ll be prepared to invite others from your congregation to form a leadership team to help plan and implement mission, you’ll know more about places and organizations in the community where your congregation can be present and partner for God’s mission, and you’ll be inspired to build a congregational culture of expectation that following Jesus means living a life of service and mission.
Before you go, I want to review a few resources that will be helpful for you to explore as you get started with mission and outreach ministry. Each of these resources has a website you can find with a simple google search.
First, United Methodist Volunteers in Mission or UMVIM. UMVIM offers a framework for engaging in short term mission locally, nationally, and globally. UMVIM can help with mission team leader training and get you connected with mission projects.
Second, Global Ministries. Global Ministries is the worldwide mission, relief and development agency of the UMC, working with partners and churches in more than 115 countries to equip and transform people and places for God’s mission. You’ll find a helpful directory of missionaries and mission projects on their site along with many other great resources and opportunities.
Third, United Methodist Committee on Relief or UMCOR. UMCOR is a part of Global Ministries and focuses on disaster relief, recovery, and preparedness. UMCOR offers a variety of trainings to equip your congregation for disaster ministry.
Fourth, Church & Society. The United Methodist General Board of Church & Society lives out the calling to work toward personal and social holiness through five program priorities, all grounded in racial justice: poverty, climate, health, peace, and civil and human rights. Their work is guided by our United Methodist Social Principles, which is a great resource for study.
Fifth, the General Commission on Religion and Race or GCORR. GCORR was formed in 1968 to hold the newly created United Methodist Church accountable in its commitment to reject the sin of racism in every aspect of the life of the church. GCORR provides educational and discipleship courses and events that will challenge and equip your congregation to dismantle racial discrimination
Thank you again for your service in mission and outreach ministry with your congregation. I hope this video has shed some light on what it means to lead your congregation in mission & outreach and will help you get started on this journey. And, now, may God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done in your life, your congregation, your community, as it is in heaven. Amen.
And all my life You have been faithful And all my life You have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
Goodness of God, Bethel Music
Yesterday was All Saints Sunday – the day we remember the saints in our lives and within our church family who are no longer in our presence; those who have taken their rest as we all await the day of resurrection when God’s reign in heaven is fully consummated with us and all creation on earth. This is the day when the goodness of God will be all in all – finally, forever.
Until then, the rest of us still, by God’s grace, experience the goodness of God in our lives in a myriad of ways even though we tend to be oblivious most of the time. As the song goes, God is faithful and God has been good and this reality is something that rightfully calls for our praise and thanksgiving “with every breath that we are able.”
We sang this song yesterday at Auburn UMC. I don’t remember the last time I sang it but I’m sure it’s been awhile since I usually attend the “traditional” service where we only sing hymns. But yesterday was different. I attended the 8am traditional service with my family as usual but then left to pick up my friend Ramon to bring him to the 9:30 “celebration” service.
I met Ramon this summer after seeing a facebook post about a man in town who needed help with wound care supplies. Only by God’s Spirit, a delivery of bandages and gauze soon transformed into a very unlikely series of friendships between myself, Ramon, and a few others from our church (and beyond!).
My friend Ramon is from Honduras. His wife and young son live there still. He endured a very dangerous, life-threatening journey, nearly losing his foot. It has been a joy to accompany him over the past few months, giving rides to the doctor, helping with groceries, and just getting to know each other more. He is a devout Catholic and yesterday was his first time worshiping in a protestant, English-speaking church. I was encouraged when he said it was beautiful and told me he wanted to come back again.
Which brings me back to the goodness of God.
My throat caught a little when we came to the bridge of this song:
‘Cause Your goodness is running after It’s running after me Your goodness is running after It’s running after me With my life laid down I’m surrendered now I give You everything ‘Cause Your goodness is running after It’s running after me (oh-oh)
Goodness of God, Bethel Music
Particularly this phrase: “Your goodness is running after me.” I thought about Ramon, standing there next to me reading the lyrics in Spanish on my phone, and his journey – on the run. I thought about how God’s goodness was running after him as he trekked for 3 months to the US-Mexico border. How God’s goodness continued running after him as he was twice returned to dangerous Mexican border cities. Even as he severely injured his foot, God’s goodness came behind him and carried him to medical care and on to Auburn where more extensive care was needed. God’s goodness has been evident in his healing and in the way a small unlikely community has formed to welcome him.
I wondered what it meant for him to sing this song about God’s goodness running after him. Did he think back to all those nights sleeping outside not knowing what was next? Did he think about where God’s goodness was when his friend was kidnapped, help for ransom, and murdered in Mexico? I wondered how many others he knows who have made the same journey as him only to be deported or lose their lives in the process.
Ruth Alix carrying her infant son through Panama’s Darien Gap jungle, NY Times
My mind wandered farther, considering the hundreds of thousands – millions? – of migrants who – as I type this – are on the run. Is God’s goodness chasing after them too? Is God’s goodness running after the Haitian mother who, today, is wading through chest high water with her infant 50 miles into the densest jungle in central America at the mercy of smugglers, trudging barefoot through treacherous muddy paths, enduring the threat of rape, exploitation, and murder, for a week, just to emerge in southern Panama with absolutely nothing, knowing that even after that unimaginably difficult journey there are still 2600 miles and 5 borders to cross before reaching the US border where those yearning to breathe free will find no guarantee of even basic human rights and respect for US or international law?
On the one hand, I have to admit that only God’s goodness could carry someone through a journey this risky and dangerous. On the other hand, I consider the unjust political and economic causes fueling this massive wave of migration, much of which is linked directly to US foreign policy in central and South America over several decades, along with the hundreds, thousands, who were lost on this 21st century trail of tears and my wondering turns back to the sanctuary of Auburn UMC, standing there next to Ramon
What does it mean for me, for our church, for people who have never been on the run or forced to flee violence and extreme poverty, to sing a song about God’s goodness running after us? Is it even to sing this song if we are not just as fervently advocating for the hundreds of millions of God’s children who are forced from their homes? We may be forgiven for not knowing how to respond in the face of such overwhelming global migration, but what about the hundreds of migrant families in our community already? Do we recognize God’s goodness in them? Are we welcoming them and making space to include them in our lives, in our churches? Do we see their incredibly deep faith as they leave everything they’ve ever known and risk their lives for the sake of their families and communities back home? Is this not the way we talk about “radical” discipleship? Did Jesus not command his disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him? My friend Ramon knows what this means; I sometimes wonder if I even have a clue.
Taking this one step (ok, maybe several steps) further: how has white evangelical American redefined “God’s goodness” in terms of being successful capitalists and consumers? What are we really referring to when we sing that God’s goodness is running after us? Is it merely forgiveness of sin that frees us from guilt so we can keep living the American dream with a side of service or helping others when it fits into our budgets and schedules? Is it the “peace” we mistake for blessing that is built more on centuries of injustice and oppression than on God’s goodness and mercy? Are we even singing about God’s goodness?
When we turn to the Psalms, the ancient book of songs and poems that sustained our spiritual ancestors, we find praise after praise for God’s goodness and faithfulness. Of course, our (white evangelical North American) lives are nothing like our spiritual ancestors who endured slavery, wilderness wandering, destruction, and exile time and again. When they sang of God’s goodness, they re-told the stories of God’s liberation, how God worked for justice in their midst, how God set them free, healed them, restored them, and made a way for them when there was no way. They sang of God’s sovereign might over all creation, all nations, and God’s willingness to act on behalf of those the world had discarded. They cried out to God for relief, for rescue, for mercy. They lamented the brokenness, the loss, the grief, the injustice they endured.
Too often, when our churches sing the Psalms, we tend to be pretty selective – singing about God’s majesty and glory and goodness and power – all things we assume to be inherent in our culture – and leave out the Psalms crying out for justice. In a recent article entitled “Why Don’t We Sing Justice Songs in Worship,” Old Testament lecturer and assistant pastor Michael Rhodes writes a good word that captures the mal-formational effect this kind of singing has on us:
Worship that doesn’t sing like Scripture fails to relate to God the way God himself demands we relate to him. And because worship has a unique power to transform hearts and minds, when we refuse to sing Scripture’s justice songs, we reject one of God’s strategies for discipling us to become just ourselves… By refusing to sing like the psalms do, those of us who are not poor and oppressed refuse to learn how to mourn and protest alongside them. We complain that our suffering neighbors sound too angry, rather than discovering the angry rage of the poor in the face of extreme injustice on nearly every page of Holy Scripture’s hymnbook
Michael J. Rhodes, “Why Don’t We Sing Justice Songs in Worship”, Christianity Today
I love a good choir or praise and worship band. But what I really need is for my friend Ramon to lead me in worship. To teach me to lament, to cry out to God’s justice and mercy, to truly surrender and “give God everything.” Maybe then, when I learn to run alongside Ramon and others who are on the run in our world, I can learn to sing of God’s goodness running after me.
Resources
Preemptive Love is an organization stretching across Iraq, Syria, Latin America, the United States, and beyond, working together to unmake violence and create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Their 3 part blog series below is very helpful for understanding Haiti and the causes behind the migration of Haitian people:
The Broke-ish Podcast also had a great recent episode “Ain’t None of Us Free Until We Are All Free (The Remix): Haiti and Black America” which features Haitian native, Dieula Previlon, a trauma counselor, ordained minister, and non-profit executive. They discuss both the beautiful history and present-day environmental and political crises in Haiti.
For a global perspective on current migration trends, review the World Migration Report 2020 from the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
I was honored to participate in a virtual event on Fri. Jan 15, 2021, Dr. King’s birthday, hosted by Alabama Rural Ministry and the Macon Co Minister’s Council entitled “Surviving and Thriving as the Beloved Community during COVID-19.” I was asked to be a panel member to share comments about structural racism in light of COVID-19. I shared some thoughts off the cuff, from my heart, after being moved by the testimonies shared, especially from children and youth, and the challenge Mayor Haygood of Tuskegee shared in his reflection. I stand by what I said but wanted to attempt to say it again in a more structured and organized way now that I’ve had some time to reflect. This will include my recollection of what I actually said as well other thoughts I had intended to share along with ideas I’ve had as I’ve reflected more.
There is much to be said about structural racism in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s start with dire reality of our situation. You have probably heard or read in the news about how COVID-19’s path of destruction has followed the well-worn paths of inequality carved across our society for centuries. Indigenous, Black, and Latino Americans have suffered disproportionately from the severest outcomes of this disease. APM Research Lab reports that members of these marginalized communities were 2.7 times more likely to die from COVID than whites in 2020 even after accounting for age. Epidemiologist and family physician Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones said in an interview with Scientific American over the summer that “Race doesn’t put [communities of color] at higher risk [of severe outcomes from COVID-19]. Racism puts you at higher risk.” She describes how this works: (1) communities of color are over-exposed and under-protected from the virus; and (2) communities of color have higher death rates due to bearing disproportionately higher burdens of chronic disease and having disproportionately lower access to healthcare. Over-exposure to COVID-19, Dr. Phyllis-Jones explains, is due to the over-representation of minoritized individuals in low-wage, frontline jobs. But this over-representation did not just happen: it is linked to the structurally racist forces of residential and educational segregation in our country. This is just one example of how structural racism has amplified the risk factors for communities of color. Other research from 2020 established a strong relationship between the level of racism expressed by individuals in a county and the rate of COVID infections – a relationship that strengthened as the Black population of the county increased – and that county-level implicit racial attitudes even predicted COVID-19 deaths. This research and statistics are hard to stomach on top of all the other challenges we’ve faced this year, but they are not surprising given the racial injustice that white America has benefitted from at the expense of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color since before the founding this country.
But as I listened to the testimonies shared by our young people about their sadness and struggle with school, about the isolation and depression from our adult and senior adult testimonies, and reflections Mayor Haygood of Tuskegee shared about the need to name our challenges and no longer be silent, I was moved in my spirit to say more about structural racism, which is driven by an insidious lie about people of European descent. Namely this: the suffering we’ve experienced from COVID-19 has been amplified, intensified, and multiplied greatly by our president. I think back to the early months of 2020 and wonder how things might be different today had the president not consistently lied to us. It did not have to be this way, not this bad. This president was elected on a very thinly veiled colorblind racist appeal to return our country to the way it is “supposed to be” where a strong white man is in charge and everyone else knows their “rightful” place. His election (and re-election attempt) was supported most strongly by people who look and worship like me – white evangelical Christians – despite the obvious warning signs about his deceptive and harmful character throughout his campaign and during his presidency. What we witnessed at our nation’s capitol last week was the expected fruit of our lying president combined with our centuries old disease of white supremacy. As Mayor Haygood reminded us concerning Dr. King’s legacy, too many “people of goodwill” like me have remained silent for too long. If you’re like me, you may be a white evangelical Christian who never supported or voted for this twice-impeached president, but that should provide us little comfort. The anti-racist scholar Ibram X. Kendi writes about how most whites have settled with being “not racist” which is very different from what is required in our day to build a beloved community: being anti-racist.
Late in his life cut far too short by his assassination, Dr. King described in profound detail what this anti-racist journey would require of us. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967 was one of his most radical and we would do well to remember it today in our pursuit of the beloved community. In this speech, he calls us to a “radical revolution of values” that requires a “shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society” in order to conquer the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.” My how these giants have grown in the past 54 years? King recalls Jesus’ parable of the neighbor, or the “Good Samaritan,” and says so profoundly:
One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam
For King, this revolution of values will cause us to “look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth,” and “lay hands on the world order and say of war: ‘This way of settling differences is not just.'” And, with new eyes filled with true moral wisdom, we might finally come to see that a “nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” This is the vision, the legacy, that Dr. King left us to challenge us toward the building of beloved community and, since his assassination, far too few white people have taken on this journey.
But I am encouraged by what I’ve heard about the ways we’ve managed to survive and thrive as beloved community despite the many challenges we face from COVID-19 and racial injustice. The acts of neighborly care and compassion, the sacrifice of so many like teachers, nurses, and our many front-line workers, and all the reminders of kindness and goodness that have been shared all give me hope. I also find a glimmer of hope in the coming transition of leadership in our country that, if nothing else, will give us much more truth than we’ve heard the past 4 years. And, who knows, we may even get some real moral leadership.
I think I’m most encouraged by the work of a national movement that is building a “moral fusion coalition” to take up the work of justice Dr. King left behind: The Poor People’s Campaign led by Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. In their demands, the Poor People’s Campaign advocate for policies to finally conquer the “giant triplets” that King named along with a fourth: ending systemic racism, economic injustice, militarism/war economy, and ecological devastation. The Poor People’s Campaign is organizing in all 50 states and there are many ways you can take action now.
I’ve also found joy and hope through the work of the Equal Justice Initiative, (EJI) led by lawyer Bryan Stevenson and based in Montgomery. Inspired by EJI and their recent opening of a national memorial for Black victims of racial terror lynching in America, two Auburn graduate students founded the Lee County Remembrance Project (LCRP) to shine a light of truth on our own county’s history of racial terror lynching. Lee County Remembrance held a virtual ceremony in November to acknowledge and honor the 4 Black men who were lynched in Lee County. During this ceremony, an EJI lawyer, Kayla Vinson, put these lynchings into historical context and shared EJI’s profound vision for “an era of truth and reconciliation” in our country after enduring the terror of the narrative of racial difference for 4 centuries. “An era of truth and reconciliation” – I haven’t been able to get this vision out of my head ever since. LCRP is now working on installing an historical marker near the Lee County Courthouse to permanently commemorate this past injustices in order that we might heal as a community. This is also part of our work to fight racism and undergo the revolution of values for which Dr. King gave his life.
Neither COVID-19 or our 45th president caused structural racism but both have drawn back the curtains of color-blindness and American exceptionalism that help cloak white supremacy. Still there are many who refuse to see. King calls us to “the fierce urgency of now.” It will take all of us, especially the white evangelical Christians among us, doing all the anti-racist good we can in all the anti-racist ways we can (to paraphrase a famous Methodist) to fight for the dream of beloved community.
[White Christians’] repentance for racism must not be reduced to simply issuing apologies and receiving forgiveness. Forgiveness is a largely interpersonal process between specific parties related to specific transgressions. White supremacy is not an interpersonal, or even a specific, transgression… [and] there is no single individual or entity that owns the right of forgiveness or apology…
White supremacy is a manifestation of the powers and principalities, [and] not only have White Americans neglected to do battle, but they have also been complicit in and benefited from them. They have been agents of the evil one. Repentance from racism thus requires White Americans to face the horrific reality of racial oppression in all its forms. It requires them to confess the ways that they have participated in and benefitted from it and to commit to the ongoing work of systemic and structural reform that is necessary to eliminate racism. It requires a willingness to admit that the poison of White supremacy is embedded deep within every aspect of US society and will not be eliminated without massive structural overhaul…
Repentance from White supremacy means that whiteness itself must be transformed… Resisting White supremacy means that White Christians must become more Christian than White. It means that White people broadly must undergo a process of rehumanization. That is, they must recover the fullness of their humanity – the imago dei – that was lost through cooperating with the powers… It requires a wholistic conversion, a re-orienting toward God and away from White supremacy.
A devotion I shared with the staff of Auburn UMC on Oct. 23rd 2019.
For my devotion today I wanted to follow up on an email Cory sent out last week about visiting the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) museum and memorial as a staff next month. I’d like to share a little context for this visit and hopefully encourage you to make plans to join us.
EJI was started by Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and a man of deep faith, as a non-profit law firm in Montgomery, AL over 30 years ago. I learned about EJI from Stevenson’s memoir, JustMercy, released in 2014. A movie by the same name is being released this Christmas featuring Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx [TRAILER].
As you would expect, Stevenson spends a lot of time with prisoners. I reflected on Jesus’ words that we’ve all heard before from Matthew 25: I was in prison and you came to visit me. Jesus identifies himself with prisoners and calls us to respond in compassion and solidarity.
What does it mean for us to take these words seriously? To
see the prisoner as Jesus the Christ and to “visit” him?
To begin to answer that question we need to know something about how the Bible describes prison and imprisonment. I found a great paper online at restorativejustice.org [Christopher D. Marshall, “Prisons, Prisoners, and the Bible”] that gave a nice Biblical theology of imprisonment:
Imprisonment
was a cause of great suffering
Imprisonment
was an instrument of oppression more than an instrument of justice
Imprisonment
is identified in scripture with the spirit and power of death
So that’s what Jesus has in mind as he’s describing the prisoner and identifying himself as that person. He’s in a place of great suffering, being oppressed, and wrestling with the spirit of death itself.
The biblical and historical context helps but we also need
to know something about our current context around prisons in order to live
into Jesus’ teaching today.
I started learning more about our criminal justice system a few years back when I read a book called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, also a lawyer. Through her writing and others, I now know we live in a mass incarceration society. What does that mean? It means that in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we lock up more people than any other country in the world. The US accounts for 5% of the total world population, yet the US prison population accounts for 25% of the global prison population. I have 2 graphs that show this phenomenon.
The first compares the US incarceration rate to that of other founding NATO countries.
The second shows the growth of our prison population over time since 1925. It breaks down the population by state prison, local jail, and federal prison. You can see a dramatic increase starting in the early 1970s. This increase is most severe in the state prison and local jails.
This is important to note because each state operates its
own criminal justice system. Which brings us to our own state, Alabama, and the
truly terrible condition of our prison system.
WRBC News in Birmingham received 2500 images depicting prison violence from a correctional officer working at St Clair correctional facility. Here’s what they said in their report [WARNING: Graphic Violence] published this April:
Alabama prisons are a slaughterhouse, where rape, stabbings, murder and extortion happen around the clock, as confirmed in the recent Department of Justice investigation. In this age of mass incarceration, prisons and jails across America are vicious places, but Alabama’s brutality is exceptional… These photos, a virtual trove of prison gore from inside an especially rotten facility, represent a perversion of the notion that prison should be hard. We now have real evidence that incarceration in Alabama is homicidal and suicidal. A volunteer prison minister once told me he believes the places are demonic. It is hard to look at, but important to see.
Beth Shelburne, “The Bloody Truth: Inside America’s most violent prison system,” 4/11/19
The news report references a Department of Justice investigation also released this April [FULL REPORT], which lays out the many ways “Alabama routinely violates the constitutional rights of prisoners housed in Alabama’s prisons.”
The next few slides give more detail:
The prison mortality rate in Alabama versus the national average. Not only is Alabama much higher than the national average, our prisons are the deadliest in the nation.
Overcrowding in AL prisons vs other states – we are near 170% capacity
Incarceration in AL vs the US vs other NATO countries
The racial disparities in AL’s prison population vs the general population
In summary, Alabama’s prisons are places of extreme and dehumanizing violence, they are massively overcrowded, underfunded, & understaffed, and they are marred by racial discrimination.
So, returning to our text: I was in prison and you visited
me. What do we do?
When we go back to the biblical theology of imprisonment we
looked at earlier, we find one more theme: God wants to set prisoners free.
This is echoed throughout both testaments, in the Psalms, in the prophets, and
Jesus himself picks this up in Luke 4 when he quotes Isaiah 61 as his mission
statement of sorts.
The question I’m asking myself, a non-prisoner, in an age of
mass incarceration and grotesquely inhumane prison conditions is this: am I
really free?
Going back to our visit to EJI, Bryan Stevenson said in a
recent interview:
Part of our work [at EJI] is aimed at trying to re-engage this country with an awareness and understanding of how our history of racial inequality continues to haunt us. I don’t think we’re free in America — I think we’re all burdened by this history of racial injustice, which has created a narrative of racial difference, which has infected us, corrupted us, and allowed us to see the world through this lens. So it becomes necessary to talk about that history if we want to get free.
The question and the invitation as we go to visit EJI next month is this: do we – as a church, a community, and nation – want to be truly free? I hope you’ll make plans to join us.
Finally, from a Salvadoran perspective it is clear that the true God is at war with other gods. These are the idols, the false divinities—though they are real enough—which Archbishop Romero has concretized for our time in speaking of the absolutization of exploitative capitalism and “national security.” Idols dehumanize their worshipers, but their ultimate evil lies in the fact that they demand victims in order to exist. If there is one single deep conviction which I have acquired in El Salvador, it is that such idols are real; they are not the inventions of so-called primitive peoples but are indeed active in modern societies. We dare not doubt this, in view of such idols’ innumerable victims: the poor, the unemployed, the refugees, the detainees, the tortured, the disappeared, the massacred. And if idols do exist, then the issue of faith in God is very much alive.
I have also learned in El Salvador that to believe in God means to cease having faith in idols and to struggle against them. That is the reason why we humans must make a choice not only between faith and atheism but between faith and idolatry. In a world of victims, little can be known about a person simply because he calls himself a believer or a nonbeliever. It is imperative to know in which God she believes and against which idols she does battle. If such a person is truly a worshiper of idols, it matters little whether he accepts or denies the existence of a transcendent being. There really is nothing new in that: Jesus affirmed it in his parable of the last judgment.
So in order to speak the whole truth one must always say two things: in which God one believes and in which idol one does not believe. Without such a dialectic formulation, faith remains too abstract, is likely to be empty and, what is worse, can be very dangerous because it may very well allow for the coexistence of belief and idolatry.
Jon Sobrino, S.J. “Awakening from the Sleep of Inhumanity,” The Christian Century, April 3 1991, p364-370
{receive & enter} 