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| Mother Emanuel AME Church, Charleston, SC |
Sermon Preached at St. James Episcopal Church • San
Francisco, CA
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Texts: Job 38:1-11 & Mark 4:35-41
The Rev. Ron Willis
May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer.
Satwant Singh Kaleka
Paramjit Kaur
Suveg Singh Khattra
Prakash Singh
Ranjit Singh
Sita Singh:
These congregants of a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin,
had gathered to prepare a free communal meal that would have been served in the
Temple later that day, three years ago this August. All were slain by an
American white supremacist in a terrorist attack.
William Lewis Corporon
Reat Griffin Underwood
Terry LaManno:
A neo-Nazi and former member of the KKK shot and killed these
three last year simply because they were in the parking lot of the Jewish
Community Center of Kansas City and a nearby retirement center, Village Shalom.
More violence is visited upon Jews and those associated with them than any
other religious group in America.
Greg McKendry
Linda Kraeger:
They were shot and killed when a disgruntled man wielding a
shotgun hit six other people attending a children’s performance of Annie at a Unitarian church in Knoxville
7 years ago. Their crime? The church supported liberals and gays.
Since 9/11 there has been a significant increase in property
destruction, violence and death against those perceived to be Muslim, including
many mosque burnings. According to the Washington Post, hate crimes against
Muslims are still five times more common today than prior to 2011.
Carol Denise McNair
Addie Mae Collins
Carole Robertson
Cynthia Wesley:
These four young girls were murdered in a terrorist bombing
52 years ago when members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Another 22 parishioners were wounded. The Klan’s
aim was to terrorize the black community by striking at its very heart, the
church that sustained them. By this point, the African American community had
already endured another 21 bombings in Birmingham in just the eight years prior
to this heinous act.
And today, half a century later, we grieve over another
terrorist attack against parishioners in an iconic Black church in the South, a
church that is no stranger to hateful and violent actions by white racists.
What part of the American character makes it possible for
hate-filled violence to be so frequently perpetrated upon our fellow citizens?
Although there are myriad contributing factors, I believe that the root can be
summed up in a phrase that I have come across several times in the last few
days:
“Racism is the original sin of the United States.”
Our Constitution says not a word about the entrenched
institution of slavery, other than to declare that African descendants were but
3/5ths of a man. Our Declaration of Independence labels Native Americans,
including my Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Cree ancestors, as savages, and
our nation conducted generations of campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide
against them. And women, over half of our population, were denied the right to
vote for well over a century.
If we are honest, can we not say that America was founded
upon a fundamentally sinful principle – that white males were destined by God
to rule this land and to expand its bounds as far and wide as possible? Our
national sense of purpose, exploiting to its zenith in the mid-19th
century concept of Manifest Destiny, corrupted God’s economy, one based upon
love, compassion, mercy, and obedience, and instead adopted a system based upon
the privilege of the few (and the white) at the cost of the many. Amos,
Jeremiah, Isaiah, all of the
prophets, not to mention Jesus, provided millennia of witness that such a
system, which ignored the plight of the oppressed, was inconsistent with God’s
will.
As we know, the institution of slavery so grieved the souls
of enough Americans that we fought our bloodiest war to abolish the laws of the
land that allowed men to own other human beings. But in the aftermath of that
devastating war, opportunities for healing and reconciliation were squandered. Competing
interests kept the promises of Reconstruction from coming to fruition,
ultimately leading to Jim Crow, “separate but equal,” laws across the entire
former Confederacy. In the North and the West segregation may not have been
written into law, but it became standard practice due to deed restrictions,
financial discrimination and other blatantly racist policies.
At the end of the Civil War we had the opportunity to atone
for our national sin of determining a person’s worth and inherent dignity based
upon the color of their skin, but we were unable to rise to the occasion.
Rather than attending to the wound in our national soul, we covered it in gauze
and tape and assumed that it would heal. But in the absence of sometimes
painful cleansing and treatment, covered wounds just fester and swell. So to,
in the absence of sometimes-painful self-assessment and truth-bearing, it is
absurd to assume that reconciliation will happen.
The first step in reconciliation is acknowledgement of one’s
sin; the second is repentance. On a national level, we’ve never truly admitted
how our racist roots fundamentally corrupted our national soul. Until we find a
way to do that, each attempt at repentance will just be a ripping off of the
bandage only to immediately cover the gaping wound once again lest we faint from
the sight of the truth.
And it’s not just in violent acts like the massacre in
Charleston that white privilege and the corrupt vanity of white supremacy break
into our national life. While many hoped that the election of our first black
President would move American into a “post-racial” era, just the opposite seems
to have happened. No white president would have been subjected to the absurd
claims made about President Obama, some of which persist to this day. Even
before the ink had dried on the Supreme Court’s decision to eviscerate the
Voting Rights Act, Southern states were clambering to enact laws that
disproportionately disenfranchise black voters.
Add to this the heartbreaking number of incidents of disproportionate
use of force, at times with deadly consequences, by white police officers
against black subjects, and we seem to be in the midst of a storm of racial
violence. Like the disciples in Mark’s Gospel today, buffeted by the maelstrom,
we cry out for Jesus’ protection and guidance.
But even as Jesus chided his disciples for their doubt, we
need look no further than to the families of those murdered at Mother Emanuel
to see faith in action. In the midst of their deep despair their deep trust and
faith in Jesus is a profound witness to what it means to be Christian. Given
the opportunity to rail against the one who ended the lives of those they
loved, they chose instead to offer their forgiveness and to pray for his
everlasting soul.
Like Job, our brothers and sisters in Charleston have been tested
in their faith. Also like Job, they refuse to abandon their faith in their
grief. They summoned the strength of their faith in Jesus to calm the storm of
their despair by proclaiming the Gospel, the love of God, to their tormentor.
So what is our role in the light of this tragedy? How are we
to address the festering wound of racism in our culture? How can we possibly
make a difference against such an intransigent and deep-seated impediment to
our national aspiration that all people are created equal?
Two heroes occupy my consciousness as icons for dealing with
my own struggles. One, Desmond Tutu, is in my mind the greatest Anglican alive
today. His remarkable work as the head of the South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission made enormous strides in bringing his country out of
what many thought would be an impossible situation that would lead to decades
of retribution and war. South Africa is far from being a contented democracy,
and their issues are legion, but the Truth and Reconciliation commission’s work
and the leadership of President Mandela brought peace where many expected
violence. Unfortunately many, many generations have passed since the end of the
Civil War, so that precise model does not apply here. But should we not, as a
national church as well as the country as a whole be tapping into the mind of
the brilliant and devoted saint while he is still with us?
My other hero today is Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl
who was shot in the face and left for dead by the Pakistani Taliban for her
advocacy of the right of girls to be educated. She happened to be John
Stewart’s scheduled guest the evening after the Charleston terror attack. I
don’t know how many of you caught Stewart’s comments about the murders, but it
was an absolutely brilliant and brutally honest assessment of our national
amnesia when it comes to seeing, much less dealing with, racism.
When asked by Stewart how one person can make a difference,
she replied:
“Sometimes we wait for others, and think that a Martin
Luther should raise among us, a Nelson Mandela should raise among us, and speak
up for us, but we never realize that they are normal humans like us, and if we
step forward, we can also bring change just like them.”
We are blessed to also have several resources that mean that
we don’t have to feel like we must act alone. Our rector, Father John, has
participated in reconciliation work in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting
death of Michael Brown, as well as other activities locally and beyond. He’s a
terrific resource right here at St. James.
Our diocese, and our national church, both have racial reconciliation
ministries that can benefit from our participation. And interfaith
reconciliation committees and ministries serve at the local, regional, state
and national levels. We just need to raise our hand and say, “Here I am.”
I close with a prayer offered by our Presiding Bishop:
“For Clementa C. Pinckney,
For Tywanza Sanders
For Sharonda Coleman-Singleton,
For Cynthia Hurd,
For Ethel Lance,
For Susie Jackson,
For Depayne Middleton,
For Daniel Simmons Sr, and
For Myra Thompson;
Gracious and loving God,
May we recognize that you bind us together in common life.
Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice, truth, and healing to
confront the evils of hate, racism, and violence that pervade the United States
and the world.
Hold us as we remember lives of the mothers, fathers, sons,
daughters and grandchildren of those who were killed. Comfort those whose hearts and souls are
broken.
We ask this at time when the people and community of
Charleston and North Charleston are also grappling with the meaning of the
police involved shooting death of Walter Scott. We look to you while communities across the
United States groan over the loss of too many people to gun violence. You remind us of the dignity and humanity of
all human beings.
Grant, O God that the hearts of those who remain may be
moved through your life-giving Spirit to remove the barriers that divide us so
that hatreds may cease, and divisions being healed, we may live in justice and
peace.” Amen
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