"DAYS OF MY LIFE"

“THE DAYS OF MY LIFE”

            Last week I wrote brief synopses of what Caroline and Fahed Abu-Akel shared of their journeys at the Church Women United Luncheon where we all were honored with their Human Rights Award on September 8.  I noted that their perspective came from those who are oppressed – Caroline as a woman, Fahed as an Arab Christian.  Today I’ll share part of what I shared of my story at the CWU Luncheon.  I come from the perspective of the white male, of the oppressor.  While they had neighbors and interventionists help them recognize their captivity to internalized oppression, God sent similar folks to me to help me recognize my internalized superiority.  This is some of what I shared.

            I grew up in the white, segregated South – segregated schools, segregated churches, segregated everything.  I was taught the love and grace of God by wonderful white people, including my spectacular mom, who raised me as a single, working, poor mother.  All of these white people also taught me captivity to what the Bible calls “the Powers,” systemic things like racism and sexism and materialism and homophobia and militarism.  [At this point, I got many more “Amens” from the mostly black women CWU gathering than I wanted!!!}  I believed that white people were superior, that men should dominate women, that money brings life, that LGBTQ people were not human like me, and that redemptive violence brought peace.  They taught me well – it wasn’t that I believed in equality and was in rebellion – I believed that white supremacy was true, was God’s will.

            Fortunately for me, I was blessed to have God send people to be neighbors to me, to intervene in my life and to reveal my captivity to me, so that I could begin to see this whole new world that God is calling into being.  There are too many of those people to name, but some of them are in this room today, and I thank you!

            It reminds me of the passage in Matt 15:21-28, where Jesus encounters a Palestinian woman.  Now, I’m no Jesus, but I understand this story very well.  Jesus is tired, and he’s a Jewish man, and this Palestinian woman is not in his circle.  But she bugs him and begs him to heal her daughter.  But, Jesus ends up calling her a dog and telling her that she is not worthy of being with the Jews.  She then stuns Jesus by saying: “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table.”  She reminds Jesus that she’s in the house!  Though Jesus doesn’t think so, she BELONGS to the household of God.

            God sent this woman as neighbor to Jesus, to let him know that his mission was deeper and wider than even He thought it was – AND, it worked!  By the end of Matthew’s Gospel, when the Resurrected Jesus sends out his disciples before he leaves, he doesn’t tell them to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Rather, he tells them to go to everybody, to go to the entire world to proclaim this widening, inclusive, justice-seeking, love-bearing Beloved Community of God.

            And that’s how it works – we’re asked to be neighbors and interventionists with one another.  AND to listen when God sends neighbors to intervene in our lives.  To speak up and act up for justice, to seek equity and equality, and to remain humble in our approach, because we all have captivity to the powers in us – there are no exceptions.  We need people to intervene in our lives.

            I thank Church Women United for being some of those neighbors, some of those interventionists, for your continuing witness over these years.  I thank all of the neighbors God has sent to intervene in my life and who God will continue to send.  We are called to share with one another, bear with one another, love one another, challenge one another, support one another – that’s who we are, and that’s what brings us together today.  Thank you!

            So, let us reflect on this need for neighbors and interventionists in our lives.  Let us give thanks for our journeys and for those who have nurtured in us the idea that we are children of God, rather than children of the Powers of the world.  And let us resolve to be witnesses to one another in that way.  Speaking of that kind of witness, here’s a reminder of how the Powers work when we are not able to do what we need to do as neighbors and interventionists.  This past Saturday, September 15, was the 55^th anniversary of Birmingham Sunday, when white men planted dynamite in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and when it exploded, 4 little girls going to Sunday school were killed.  Rhiannon Giddens has a great cover of the song that Richard Farina wrote about that killing, and here’s the link to it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_T5KlTpvoM&feature=youtu.be