Race in America: Finding Common Ground A Sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Transcription

1 Race in America: Finding Common Ground A Sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss It may be a good thing that the ugly truth of racism has reared up so blatantly in America in recent weeks. Perhaps dragging racism out of the board rooms, the sports arenas, out of the admissions office, out of certain states election commission offices, and into the media limelight gives us all a new opportunity to consider how well, or not so well, we re doing on the race issue. What is the definition of race today? What constitutes racist behavior today? Who s winning the battle for racial justice in our public institutions? Who s losing? How do Generation Xers, Millennials, and Gen Yers see and experience racial difference? How are Unitarian Universalist congregations doing on racial, ethnic, cultural diversity? How is UUCR doing? How are you and I doing? Perhaps it is necessary, however distasteful, however seemingly irrelevant the examples - it seems it is necessary to drag racism out from the public unconscious into the public consciousness. Perhaps we should be grateful for the 24-hour media cycle that just won t let the sordid and the ugly reality of racism go.

2 Perhaps it is a good thing that we have been pulled into thinking and talking about race these past weeks. For most of us, it s a conversation that s easy to avoid. And for some of us, we live the race conversation everyday, even if we re only talking to ourselves. I am so grateful to my colleague, Reverend Mark Morrison- Reed, who shared his story and his perspective with some of us last Saturday morning. Mark was raised a Unitarian Universalist at First Unitarian Church in Chicago, after his father s lab partner, Dr. Clair Patterson, invited Mark s family to attend church in 1953 or so. There were a few black families at First Chicago at the time, but Mark s religious journey has always been as a Black UU within a White denomination - he has been a faithful Unitarian Universalist. Mark has written several important books. In his memoir, In Between: Memoir of an Integration Baby, Mark writes of how few Black ministers there were in our movement at the time of his ordination and how isolated he felt and how significant it was for him when the Black ministers organized themselves into a group and began meeting regularly together. Sharing experiences of what it was like to be the only, or one of just a few Black people in a sanctuary or church meeting

3 meant everything to Mark. Learning that he was not alone, that others would understand - that meant everything and so he remained faithful. Mark has a pastoral, caring way of talking about race. He reassures that whatever experience or perspective we might bring, it is not about shame or guilt. Rather, it is simply the way we were taught, the way we were socialized. We needn t separate people into good people or bad people; we just need to take responsibility for change - for changing ourselves, for changing our institutions. We need to take responsibility for learning our own history and telling our own story. We need to take responsibility for remaining faithful to our value of welcoming, our value of human dignity and inclusion. Those of us who are white must be mindful of not hiding behind our liberal credentials I went to a diverse university, or My best friend is African American, or I was at the March on Washington, I went to Selma, or My grandchildren are mixed-race. Mark tells his personal story of race and he encourages us to tell our own. In his book Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, he tells the story of one of the earliest black ministers ordained into the Unitarian ministry. The Reverend Ethelred Brown grew up in Jamaica and came to the United States to attend Meadville Theological School in the fall of Brown was the 7 th black

4 person to attend Meadville. The first, Alfred Amos Williams, an AME minister, enrolled in Unfortunately for us, Rev. Williams went on to serve African Methodist Episcopal congregations. Brown became aware of Unitarianism after reading a copy of William Ellery Channing s sermon, which he found on the table in his uncle s home in Jamaica. After two years at Meadville, Reverend Ethelred Brown was ordained and sailed back to Montego Bay, Jamaica to begin work as a Unitarian missionary. After an eight year struggle to build a congregation in Jamaica, regularly petitioning the American Unitarian Association (AUA) for funds to pay his salary and build a church, he finally gave up and, taking his wife and six children with him, sailed back to New York City in March 1920 to establish a Unitarian church in Harlem. He did not lose faith. In Brown s own words: I believed in and still believe in Unitarianism as the religion of the future, the religion with an emancipating message which all peoples of every race may understand and accept- I had then and still have faith in this race of mine and found very soon in Harlem there were not so many Negroes as plain human beings, conservatives, liberals and radicals, men and women who had long since outgrown intellectually and morally the fundamental

5 teachings of the older churches and without conceit I had and still have faith in myself faith in my patience, in my couragefaith in my faith - not things to boast of but graces to be deeply thankful for. Yes, there was a Unitarian Church in Harlem in the 1920s, during the Harlem Renaissance! But Ethelred Brown s ministry continued to suffer from lack of financial support from the Boston-based AUA and from paternalistic attitudes towards blacks from many of those who held the purse strings. It s a complicated story of one man s struggle. It s a complicated chapter in the story of one black pioneer in a white denomination. I encourage you to read more in Morrison- Reed s book. Part of the struggle of Ethelred Brown s ministry in Harlem, and the struggle for many ministers in many locations, is the question of the church s role in society. Some religious people believe the church should be a temple dedicated to God and worship as its primary purpose. Some religious people believe religion should be a forum focused on social concerns. Temple or forum, worship or social concerns?

6 Ministers and congregations have become enmeshed in controversy. Churches in all denominations have split asunder over this dichotomy - are we spiritual or are we political? A third aspect of religion emerges as a strong component within Unitarianism - the intellectual - ours is a middle-class religion for the well-educated. I ve led enough workshops on classism within UUism to know that this is true - we are not working class friendly. But I digress. Some churches, including many black churches, emphasize the temple, the spiritual and emotional aspects of religion. Unitarian churches, historically, have emphasized the intellectual aspects of religion - the worship of the question, the holy debate, the book discussion, which is not usually the Bible. Within our movement, there has been an assumption that blacks will choose only spiritual and emotional worship experiences. Or that people in mainline religions no longer question the doctrines of their faith. There has been an assumption that working class folks, white or black, are not interested in intellectual discourse. We must question our assumptions! Imagine a triangle that represents three aspects of religion.

7 One side of the triangle is the spiritual/emotional, the other side is the intellectual. The good news is that the base of the triangle, the shared side, is the political, the commitment to social concerns, which can be a Biblically based commitment or a secular commitment. We need the whole triangle: spiritual, intellectual, political. Our task in anti-racism, multiculturalism work is to find common ground. During the civil rights movement, disparate faiths - liberal Christians, Quakers, liberal Jewish congregations, black Christian churches, Unitarian Universalist churches and progressive non-profits - met on the common ground of social concerns, of political ministry. Justice for those who were oppressed, poor, and marginalized became the shared common ground. Our liberal religious movement has missed many opportunities to become a more racially diverse religion. Mark Morrison-Reed offers both a pessimistic and an optimistic conclusion in his book. He writes: As I continue to analyze why there are so few African American Unitarian Universalists, I have come to believe that the more fundamental obstacle has been an arrogance that has limited our vision. So self-satisfied were we that we couldn t imagine

8 attracting many, save those who were like us but didn t know it yet. Speaking of our African American members, and I would include other people of color, Morrison Reed writes: The black individuals we have attracted are the religiously earnest but uncommitted, who are comfortable in an interracial setting and who believe a liberal religious, non-creedal theology and freedom of conscience is more important than racial solidarity or cultural comfort and who make this compromise and hope to make UUism a place in which other African Americans might feel at home. Mark says we can choose to open the door of our congregations, of our ministry, of our movement because others have shown the way. But opening the door must be a choice, and sustaining that call takes effort. It will be risky, difficult and painful, yet we accept such realities when we believe the effort will help us become the people and the place we yearn to be. Before I conclude, I want to add a personal note: Having grown up in a diverse neighborhood in a big city, having chosen to raise my children in as diverse neighborhoods as possible, I had credentials and I haven t always done the antiracism work that my white privilege calls me to do.

9 I d been avoiding watching the Academy Award winning film 12 Years a Slave. I had many excuses for not watching it. As I prepared this sermon, I vowed I would watch it, no matter how painful. And yes, it is a painful movie to watch because it is a true story. It is one tragic slave story among millions of tragic slave stories. The most profound insight I gained was to see and take in the reality of skin color as a determinate of life in America. Everything that happened to Solomon Northrup happened for one reason: because his skin was black. He was a free man living in New York State in the 1850s. And his skin was black. He was an educated man with a comfortable income. And his skin was black. He was a family man, a husband and father. And his skin was black. And because of his skin color, he was drugged and abducted, sold and chained, beaten, and humiliated, separated from his home and family, separated from his true identity. He barely survived for 12 years as a slave in the American south. The most emotional moment for me in the film was at the very end, when he was dressed once again as himself, when he

10 walked up the steps and into the door of his own home, when he stood in the beautiful Victorian surroundings of his own home, when he was greeted by his now-grown son and daughter and his wife, when his infant grandson, his namesake, was placed in his arms that s the moment I cried - the moment I let myself feel the terrible pain of all that had been lost in the life of that family, the terrible reality of all that had been found. If you have not watched that film, I hope you will find the courage to do so. And, after watching the film, listen again to President Obama s courageous 2008 speech on race. Perhaps courage is the common ground upon which we meet one another, whatever our differences might be. I wish you courage. Amen/Blessed Be