LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
2601 54th Avenue South St. Petersburg, FL 33712
On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961
lakewooducc.org
lakewooducc@gmail.com
Date: June 18, 2023
Scripture Lesson: Genesis 11:1-9
Sermon: Becoming An Anti-Racist
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
When you started your day today maybe you chose what kind of juice you wanted to drink. Maybe you selected which clothes you would wear. Maybe you decided what to have for breakfast. And whether to have a coffee or a tea. Maybe you chose which aftershave to splash on. Maybe you picked out something from the freezer to defrost for dinner.
Maybe you even decided whether to mow the lawn or come to church this morning.
Most of us probably made numerous choices and decisions, just this morning, before church. We are very fortunate to have so many options!
And as we awoke this morning with all of these choices to make, we also want to notice that we awoke into a society that is characterized by systemic and individual racism. That is a trait of our culture. It is part of our reality at this time in this place. And if we open our eyes and our minds, it can be seen all around us. We don’t wake up and say to ourselves, “I am going to choose to participate in systemic, institutional racism today.” Or, “I am going to choose not to participate in systemic institutional racism today.” As long as we are living in this country, we are living in a reality imbued with racism. It surrounds us and it is within us. We don’t really have the choice of opting in or opting out.
We don’t have health insurance for all, like Europeans, because when the New Deal was being implemented the white people and politicians would not support paying for health care for all of the Black people in the country. And as a consequence, millions of white people have died and are dying from lack of access to needed healthcare as well as countless Black people. This is systemic racism. And there are countless examples of similar decisions in our society – past and present. And this hurts everyone. And it is part of our reality like the air we breathe.
I just finished listening to the book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, (by Beth Macy), a thorough examination of the opioid addiction epidemic focussed on northern Virginia. This is a horrifying family and community destroying health crisis. Interestingly, it has been revealed that this epidemic is a bigger problem among whites than Blacks because doctors more freely prescribed pain relievers to white people than to Black people because they had less trust in the Black people to use the prescriptions appropriately. There it is again, systemic racism.
You can see it all the time in the media, including in mainstream news, not just social media. More negative images and assumptions relating to Black people and people of color. More reporting on crimes perpetrated by Black people and people of color.
All of this and so much more helps to form the reality we are living in. And it is passed on from generation to generation. Like we know from the song in the musical South Pacific, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.” And we are. Carter G. Woodson, the African American historian and journalist, would call this ‘miseducation.’ And it is. And it is something we all learn.
Systemic racism is so imbedded in the culture we are in that we often don’t even see it. I certainly don’t. It has become part of the atmosphere we live in. It’s simply like the air we breathe. We don’t really notice it. It is just there. And it impacts the reality of whites and Blacks alike.
Thankfully, there are people in our country who are helping us all to see this reality; what is actually there but has been ignored, forgotten, or very often, intentionally suppressed. I mean, if you are not allowing people to teach actual history, the story of past events and actions, it can only be because you are afraid of the truth. We are waking up to see more honestly and clearly the reality that we are all a part of.
The Bible story that we listened to of the Tower of Babel is a story that helps us to see our reality more clearly. Yes, this is a story that helps to account for the diversity among the human species, of habit and language. It helps to explain why there are humans all over the earth and not just in certain specific habitats. The story has been taken as a commentary on humanity over reaching and trying to attain the Divine. And there are other lessons in this story of ancient lore intended to express truth that applies to all of humankind, the whole world, not just one culture, time, or place.
When this story is considered in its wider context of the book of Genesis, we remember that the human creature has been tasked with filling the Earth and taking care of the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the Earth. And in the Babel story, what is the human community doing? They are concentrating their energy and efforts on building a tower that they believe will bring them closer to God. They are concentrating their power in what they see as self-preservation. They are limiting their attention to themselves and their perceived desires. The building of the tower is a sign of self absorption and devotion to self preservation. It is self serving. All this while they are supposed to be spreading themselves around the planet and taking care of each living creature including its habitat. Instead, they are monopolized with concentrating on taking care of only themselves. They are limiting their attention to themselves instead of the whole of creation. Obsessed with their tower they are neglecting the greater good; the needs of the whole creation, not just their own desires and needs. This is a problem. They are not carrying out their appointed role in the created order. They are denying the image of the Divine within them that is concerned with the wellbeing and flourishing of the whole of creation, not just one community.
We can see how these lessons shed light on the human construct of race and racism. It is a system, integrated with patriarchy and capitalism, that has been built into a huge monolith of power, consuming resources, energy, and creativity. And it is all concentrated on the self preservation and self serving desires of some at the expense of the greater good, not only of other people but of the planet. Systemic racism which is embedded in our society has caused us to neglect our responsibilities to the greater good and to the well being of the whole of creation. Investment in this enterprise has come at an enormous cost, to people of color, to the planet, and even to those we consider ‘white’ who are supposedly benefitting from this system. Tell that to the unemployed, depressed communities of Appalachia where the most reliable way to feed your family may just be by dealing drugs.
Racism. Systemic. Institutional. It is like that big tower in the story from Genesis. It is something that has been constructed by human beings. The concept of race has been created by people. There is no such concept among other living creatures – a hierarchy based on variations in color. Color is a feature in nature that may be related to mating and procreation, but there is nothing like the humanly created construct of race.
So when we consider race, it is not like getting to know more about, say, space – something that exists that we did not create or construct. Race is about something that people have made, constructed, invented, designed, and created.
Now, here is what I think is important about that. Since we have created it, we have perpetuated it, we have woven it into our reality, we have passed it on from generation to generation, we have given it power, this means that we can change it. It is within our power to deconstruct, to destroy, to dissemble, the tower we have created – racism. Bill McKibben, the well-known environmentalist and founder of 350.org talks about our ability to ‘de-create.’ Since humanity has created race and racism, we have the power to de-create racism. Take it down. Brick by brick.
It’s small, but just having the national holiday Juneteenth is a tiny brick being removed from the monolith of racism that can then be used to construct a new reality that is not only not racist but is proactively anti racist. That tower of Babel came down and humanity spread and flourished across the earth to take up caretaking of the entire planet. Sometimes what we have constructed must be demolished so that something better can take its place.
This is work for us as Christians, followers of Jesus, people of love and compassion for at least two reasons. One is we have a responsibility for dismantling racism because as Christians, believing we are created in the Divine Image, we are called to take care of the whole earth, every person, every life form, every acre of land, every fathom of water. This is work for us as Christians who are citizens and inhabitants of this country who want to make it a better home for everyone and who are called to serve the world entire.
This is also work for us to do as the Christian church because the church and religion have been used, or I would say abused, to construct and reinforce the racist system in which we find ourselves. Yes, there were abolitionists in the church. Yes, there are people in the church today working tirelessly to deconstruct racism and build an egalitarian culture in which all people and the Earth itself flourish. But the church is imbued with racism just as the society that we are part of. As the church, we have helped to create this society and we have upheld it. At best with ignorant, benign intentions. At worst, with completely self serving motivations.
So, we as Christians, have a particular responsibility, obligation, motivation, to do this work of de-creating the racism of the society we are part of in this country. And there is work for us to do in every aspect of society – education, politics, government, religion, healthcare, sports, arts, entertainment, social relations, economic arrangements, the legal and criminal justice and law enforcement systems – all across the board. We must ferret out and remove all obstacles to equity and justice like removing asbestos or lead paint from an old building. And there must be recompense and assistance to those who have been sidelined, redlined, and maligned by the racist reality that has infected our society.
This is work we all need to be doing. And we need to be doing it together and helping each other. Helping each other learn, grow, self examine, strategize, mobilize, and offer support and encouragement along the way. And if I say something that appears to be imbued with racism today, or at any time, I hope you will point it out to me. You see, we have all been very carefully taught.
So I am going to close telling a story on my dear husband. He knows this is coming. I warned him!
Now those of you who know Jeff know of his kindness and his commitment to justice. He would never knowingly harm anyone. He is always helping people. In addition, he is very well-educated, Harvard. He has a doctorate. He is a student of American history having been the assistant curator of the Paul Revere House in Boston. He majored in Government. He’s been a pastor, a science teacher, a social worker, and a garage door installer, among other things! Yes, his people came over on the Mayflower but he is very much committed to being on the side of the oppressed.
This will help you to understand the story I am going to share about the pervasive nature of the absorption of racism into our psyches simply by being in the society we are in.
We were in Colorado last month attending a baby shower for my niece. As we were driving to the airport in Denver, with the mountains in the background, and unending flat plains as far as the eye could see, we were commenting about the terrain. I mentioned that if I was coming across the country in a wagon to settle in the west, I would take one look at those mountains and turn around. Jeff commented that there was all this land, this space, with nothing there. It makes sense that they settled there. I questioned him. Nothing there. I reminded him there were people living there. Indigenous people. Who lived there. And were nomadic. And who lived off that land. Oh yeah, Jeff said, sheepishly. I forgot about that.
I tell you this not to condemn Jeff. But to remind us how deeply rooted racism, ethnocentrism, whiteness, and patriarchy, are embedded in our reality whatever our background or ethnicity. It’s a tall tower. And it keeps us from our calling to tend and care for all of the earth and all of the earth’s inhabitants, human and other than human. It separates us from God. From Divine Love. From the reality of God. From each other. And from the natural world. And we all have work to do on this – whoever we are, wherever we are, in this society.
I am reminded of someone from our congregation who was in his last days in the health center at Westminster Suncoast. He made it a point to get to know, take an interest in, to learn about and show compassion for the nursing aids, mostly Black women, who took care of him. He was still trying to help dismantle the edifice of racism to his dying day. Many of you knew him – Lloyd Conover.
We all have lots of choices that we can make each and every day. Today, you decided to come to church instead of mowing the lawn, or going out to brunch, or reading the paper, or catching up on your social media feeds. As the church, as Christian people, as followers of Jesus, may we choose to fulfill our calling to attend to the flourishing of all people, all life forms, and the creation itself. This necessitates eradicating the systemic, institutional, and individual racism that pervades our society. Like the tower in the story from Genesis, the humanly constructed tower of racism must be dismantled and the bricks used to create egalitarian community where people of all hues and tongues not only thrive and flourish but take care of planet Earth. Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
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