Reparations. No
doubt some will stop reading or listening just at the mention of Reparations
for Slavery and what the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church called The
Sin of Racism in March, 1994. About that same time our General Convention called
parishes to hold Anti-Racism Conversations in their churches on the day of the
annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, “until such conversations are no longer
needed.” While at St. Peter’s, Ellicott City, we did just that for about 10
years, open to the community. This evolved into a monthly conversation with
people from around Howard County. Interest and energy faded, but the need for
such conversation has not. What I learned about racism in America, and
specifically Howard County, and the White Privilege I and others continue to
enjoy has stayed with me.
This week our
bishop, The Right Reverend Eugene Sutton testified before a congressional
committee in favor of a bill, HR 40, introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
(D-Texas) that calls for the creation of a commission to study and develop
reparation proposals for African Americans – a process our Diocesan Convention
unanimously passed at our most recent convention in May. In the run up to our
convention Bishop Sutton issued a Pastoral Letter on the Subject of Reparations
(below), and on racial reconciliation, on what reparations really mean “repairing
the breach”, and how the diocese might move forward together through programs
and initiatives to build a better world out of the wreckage of the past. If we
have learned anything in the past few years, the racial divide in America is a
breach that is deep and that is wide.
It might be easy to
read about all this and the hearing that took place in Congress on Juneteenth,
the day that commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas
in 1865, and return to business as usual. The Holy Spirit, the subject of our
attention just two weeks ago on the Day of Pentecost, however, evidently wants
to keep the subject of “repairing the breach” first and foremost in our minds.
How else to explain the lessons appointed for our attention just a few days
after our Bishop’s testimony in Congress on the subject of Reparations?
Our first lesson
from Isaiah chapter 65 depicts the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus and
Mohammed virtually begging for our attention: “I was ready to be sought out by
those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here
I am, here I am,’ to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands
all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices.” What an apt description of a nation that has
repeatedly attempted to legislate a repair of the breach for the sins of racism
and slavery, even amending the Constitution to do so. But apparently
legislation does not change hearts, minds, attitudes and, most importantly,
policies – such as redlining, underfunding African-American school districts,
address the school-to-prison “pipeline” that incarcerates a disproportionate
number of African-Americans, fair housing policies – a nearly endless list of
ways that the breach may be repaired. As our resolution in convention put it:
“These are some suggestions and you will have others. Is there a ministry you
are passionate about that helps repair the inequalities in our society of the
legacy of slavery? Do you work with organizations outside the Church that are
doing this work? Do you have ideas for new ministries that would help build the
Beloved Community?” That is, Reparations is not about handing out checks to
individuals. It is about repairing communities and a nation that has been
damaged by its past, and by its refusal to acknowledge the damage that past
continues to do in widening the breach further every day.
Next comes Paul’s
letter to the Galatians chapter 3 verses 23-29 which conclude, “There is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male
and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Paul understands that God
in Jesus means to put an end to all boundaries and divisions that divide people
in this world. “Jew and Greek” addresses division along ethnic and religious
lines. “Slave and Free” addresses divisions along socioeconomic lines, dividing
those who possessed a measure of freedom from those who possessed very little.
“Male and Female” addresses divisions along gender lines, which we now know is
no longer a simple binary division, but that human gender identity is now
recognized to span a wide spectrum of possibility. One would think that
throughout the Church, and in a nation that claims to have Judeo-Christian
origins, that repairing these breaches that cause us to view the world through
the lens of these divisions that Paul lays out would be a primary task for all
of us. The Jesus Paul knew and loved spent nearly every waking hour repairing
these breaches and all kinds of divisions that prevent us from becoming The
Beloved Community God desires for all of humankind.
Perhaps one of the
best examples of this is in the story we find in Luke 8:26-29. Jesus sets out
with his disciples in a boat to continue his work on “the other side” of the
Sea of Galilee. There is a storm. This is a dangerous passage. After rebuking
the storm, Jesus leads them to a country that is “opposite” their homeland only
to find a man possessed by demons living among the tombs, whom the townspeople
had chained and shackled, “but he would break the bonds and be driven by the
demon into the wilds. Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’;
for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back
into the abyss.” Instead they beg to be sent into a herd of nearby pigs,
indicating we are in Gentile, not Jewish, territory. Jesus sends them into the
swine, the pigs rush down a steep bank and drown in the sea. The man is found
in “his right mind.” Curiously the town people are not happy about this – the
man being restored to wholeness as a person. Evidently, they prefer to live
with the boundaries and breach maintained, not repaired and healed, and with
the man not considered “a person”.
Slavery has left us
with a Legion of demons. Note that Jesus addresses the demons and finds a
solution - a solution that comes with a cost. The healing of the breach cost
some people considerable assets with the loss of the herd of pigs. And to
exorcise the demons Jesus had to cross ever ethnic, religious, socio-economic
boundary of his day. Nevertheless, the good news is that the Diocese of
Maryland has decided to address the demons, and asks every congregation to join
the process and hard work of repairing the breach. And now has invited the
nation to do the same.
One wonders,
however, if our nation is ready to address the demons that continue to keep us
chained and shackled to the sins of generations of slavery and racism. Has the
Lord, as depicted in Isaiah, captured our attention yet?
I am ready to be
sought out by those who do not ask, to be found by those who do not seek me, says
the Lord. I say, "Here I am, here I am," to a nation that does not
call on my name. I hold out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who
walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.
The Lord is ready to
help us. Are we ready to be helped? Are we ready to do the hard and costly work
of repairing the breach?
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