Disrupted by Love

PICO California clergy leaders protest outside Otay Mesa Detention Center

On Saturday, June 23, I participated with nearly 1,000 faith leaders from across California in a march and protest at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, a concentration camp for refugees run by a private company called CoreCivic.  Otay Mesa is a separation center, where parents are left grieving while their children are caged elsewhere. 

I was not planning to go to San Diego.  In fact, I was outside Healdsburg, CA with our parish youth group for our annual service learning trip when I received the call to go there.  I was just returning to San Francisco on Friday afternoon, and would need to fly down to San Diego and back on Saturday so that I could be at my parish on Sunday.   It felt like a huge interruption, but when I called my husband and asked, “Do you think I should go?” he responded, “You have to be there.”  He was right.

On Saturday, as we marched up to the concentration camp, the imprisoned refugees could hear our chants and prayers.  Then, we stopped and observed a moment of silence.  Suddenly, we could hear the voices of the parents inside the camp crying out, “Where are our children?  Can you tell us where they are?”  It is one thing to read about the “immigration issue.”  It is quite another thing to hear the pain in the voices of our sisters and brothers lamenting the loss of their children.  What began as an interruption in my schedule turned out to be a major disruption of my world.  I was undone by their love for their children, and by my love for them.  All I could do was stand there and weep. 

I do not know what the parents inside were experiencing.  I hope they could feel our love and solidarity with them.  I do know that some of them they were doused with pepper spray by the guards when they tried to call clergy they knew, who were participating in the protest outside.  I guess the guards didn’t appreciate the interruption. Even so, I hope the disruption was healing for the terrified parents, reassuring them that they are not alone. 

I do know that the disruption was an awakening for me.  I have heard the voices of our sisters and brothers, refugees crying out for their children.  I can no longer ignore their voices.  I can no longer be tempted by the lies that seek to brandish them as criminals.  I can no longer accept what is being done in my name.

Some need to be healed.  Some need to wake up.  What is the meaning of the disruption for you?

Pondering this question reminds me of a story in Mark’s Gospel.  Jesus is on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus, when along comes this unnamed woman, hemorrhaging blood, who interrupts his journey to call attention to her own need.  She engages Jesus in a stealth healing.  She doesn’t ask for what she needs, she just slips in and touches the hem of his garment, trusting that Jesus can provide the power she needs – and he does!  For her, this disruption is healing. 

Meanwhile, Jairus’ daughter appears to have died.  It probably doesn’t feel like a healing disruption to Jairus.  Turns out she isn’t dead after all: just sleeping.  Waiting to be awakened.   Jesus, seemingly unperturbed, moves on from the healing to the awakening.  

Healing disruptions can be a personal experience, but there is also a social and political dimension to such disruptions, and this too is a part of the Gospel story.  It is not insignificant that Jairus’ daughter is twelve years old, and that the anonymous woman with the flow of blood has been ill for twelve years.  The number twelve signals the twelve tribes of Israel.  The healing and awakening that these two women experience represents Israel’s healing and awakening. What is at stake here is the need for the whole people of God to experience a healing disruption.

Jairus is a leader of the synagogue, a person of social standing and influence. He is operating from a position of privilege, able to access the resources he needs for the sake of his daughter.  He has power to speak directly to Jesus and bring him to his home.  The unnamed, hemorrhaging woman in the crowd has no social standing or influence.  She is an outcast, rendered unclean by this continual flow of blood. She is operating out of desperation – and unshakable faith.  In her poverty, she has no home and so she takes to the streets to find Jesus.

Her interruption of Jesus and Jairus is a parable about the need for social disruptions – challenges to the way things are – so that the whole people of God can experience healing and reconciliation.  The unnamed woman is forced to take to the street to access power, and Jesus shares his power with her freely.  He declares her interruption justified and commends her initiative as the source of her healing.  She isn’t taking anything that isn’t already hers.  By simply acting on the reality of her human dignity, she claims a healing that would never have been necessary if the people of God had not treated her with such contempt and indifference in the first place.

For people like Jairus, such disruptions are a scandal and a threat to their privilege.  What Jesus tries to convey is that such disruptions are necessary for healing those who are most in need.  Otherwise, they will just continue to be exploited and ignored.  Jairus thinks this disruption can only mean loss for him – the loss of his daughter.   But she is not dead, merely sleeping.  This healing disruption is an opportunity for her – and all who fear the loss of privilege – to wake-up and acknowledge the genuine need of the poor. 

This is a parable about how disruptions of the status quo are necessary for the healing and awakening that reconciles and makes whole the entire people of God.  It profoundly challenges us to wake-up and acknowledge that our wholeness is inextricably bound up with the health and well-being of others. Until power is shared, the people of God cannot be whole.

When people take to the streets to assert their dignity and claim their power, such actions can feel like threatening disruptions, but they offer the gift of awakening to those who are willing to receive it.  The refugees at are border and in our community are disrupting the status quo because of their need for healing.  Those of us marching at Otay Mesa were disrupted by our encounter with the brutality of the status quo and are experiencing an awakening. 

Some need to be healed.  Some need to wake up.  What is the meaning of the disruption for you?

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The Courage to Love

 

The #NoJusticeNoDeal Campaign calls for police reform in San Francisco

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.   – 2 Timothy 1:7

Last January, the annual meeting of our congregation voted unanimously to become a member congregation of Faith in Action Bay Area (FIA).  FIA is a network of more than 100 congregations and community based organizations working together to promote justice and human dignity in communities across San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.   This decision followed the recommendation of a team of St. James members who have been exploring a partnership with FIA since 2014.

Often, when we talk about faith based community organizing, we talk about what we do (work on particular issues or campaigns) and how we do it (educational forums, voter engagement, meeting with public officials, press conferences, protests), but we rarely talk about why we do it.  We fail to address the heart of the matter.  Different people may explain why they do this work in various ways, but for me it boils down to this:  I want to love more courageously. 

The summer of 2013 was a turning point for me.  In July, a Florida jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin.  I had paid attention to the case, because it touched on my own fears for the safety of my son, then 15 years-old, who could easily have been Trayvon: a black kid living in a neighborhood where many people might have thought he didn’t belong. 

I was appalled that an unarmed 17 year-old could be stalked and shot dead with impunity.  When the NAACP in San Francisco called for a rally outside of City Hall to protest the verdict, my husband and I attended.  It was a pitiful rally in terms of turnout; less than 100 people.  Few of the participants where white, and I was the only white clergy person I could see.  I knew black folks who had showed up for immigrant rights.  I knew black folks who had showed up for marriage equality.  Who was showing up for them?  That was when I knew that I had to start showing up.

I showed up because I love my son.  All organizing work for justice is rooted in love.  Who or what do you love enough to fight for?  I realized I had to have the courage to stand up against racism if my love for my son was to have any meaning.  I needed folks who could help me to find that courage and express it in ways consistent with the energy of love.  That is how I found my way to Faith in Action Bay Area, organizing for justice and human dignity.  Justice is what love looks like in public.

After Ferguson, Missouri was disrupted by the murder of Michael Brown, I traveled there with other clergy from FIA and heard the stories of people in that community.  I began to make connections.  What began as an impulse of love launched me into a web of relationships I could not have otherwise anticipated or imagined.  Coming home, I began to hear stories of people in San Francisco directly affected by the racism of the criminal justice system. 

As I listen to the stories of people living in contexts different from my own, I begin to see them.  Their stories changed my perception of the world.  The first revolution is internal; a softening of the heart that allows us to absorb more of reality. I was disrupted by their pain and struggle, and by the acknowledgement of my own privilege; together, we began to imagine the possibility of a world without racism. 

This is what faith-based organizing work is fundamentally about: building relationships, building the beloved community across the usual divides of religion, race, class and gender.  My internal conversation about who I love developed into conversations with other concerned parents of children of color; which grew into a team of people building trust to fight against racism in the criminal justice system; which expanded into a base of people, a movement working to change laws and implement police reforms.  Finally, it had to include elected officials who have the power to make change.  We had to talk with them to learn how to leverage our collective power to make the changes we needed to protect our kids. 

This is basically what Jesus did his entire ministry.  He got clear about God’s will for him and the work he was called to do in the world.  He traveled all around the Galilee listening to people’s stories, coming close to the pain in their communities.  He gathered a team to make change, to teach, and to heal; to turn despair, isolation, and fear into a powerful community.  He engaged the religious and political leaders of his day in often difficult and even confrontational conversations.  In solidarity with those he loved, he was executed by the state for resisting evil.  And from his sacrifice, he gave life to a movement that is still setting the world on fire with God’s love.

Faith based community organizing is about finding the courage to love.  It isn’t about this or that issue.  It isn’t even about winning.  It is about building relationships so that we can claim our power as the people of God, who has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power, and of love, and of self-discipline.  We can become the people we need to be, so that we can realize God’s dream for the world; if we have the courage to love.