“I lost fear in the black belt
when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into
the Lord's death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I
am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God.”
This passage was written in the
journal of seminarian Jonathan Daniels just one week prior to his death when he
was shot and killed 51 years ago in Hayneville during the Civil Rights
movement. Daniels was 26. Today, August 14th, marks the
annual commemoration of Daniel’s martyrdom as recognized on the Episcopal
Church’s liturgical calendar.
I realize Daniels is remembered
differently than the others we recognize on the church calendar because
Jonathan had a relationship with St. Paul’s Selma. For the last six months of his life, Daniels
worshiped in this place and sat on the very back pew. The last time Jonathan took of the Lord’s
Supper in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood was at this altar.
A couple of you sitting in the
pews today remember Jonathan. Some of
you had dinner with him in your home or you chatted with him at your
office. Some of you remember him as a
nice young man with good manners, as a respectful young man. Some of you remember him as a pesky outside
agitator, as a self-righteous Yankee with a messiah complex – a complex that
even Daniels himself admitted to in a journal entry.
Regardless of how you remember
him, Daniels is remembered this day on the church calendar as someone who gave
his life so that another might live and as Episcopalians, as followers of
Jesus, we are faithful in honoring this ultimate witness to the love of God
laid down for us in Christ. And more
importantly, like all of you, Daniels is to be remembered as a beloved child of
God.
In a letter to the late Kate and
Harry Gamble, members of this parish, Daniels writes, “Though we speak in
different accents, though we live perhaps in different worlds, you and we have
already begun to live that life in the vision we share.” And that vision Daniels spoke of is a vision
of a beloved community where all children of God – black and white, young and
old, whole and broken –join hands in the way of the cross.
I realize that this perfected
vision of God’s beloved community seems like a wish dream. Even 51 years later, race relations in this
country are tenuous especially on the macro level. Yes, we have come a long way when it comes to
individual relationships between blacks and whites. But as Mark Twain is known for saying,
history doesn’t repeat itself, history rhymes.
And history is certainly rhyming when it comes to race relations in our
country.
As
I reflect on the witness of Daniels and the current state of affairs in our
country today as it relates to race, the words we hear from Jesus in today’sgospel lesson start to come alive. “Do
you think I have come to bring peace? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be
divided, three against two and two against three.”
This
difficult passage from Luke’s gospel is descriptive of what it looks like when
the truth of God is breathed into a situation.
And even the household of God on earth, the Church, is not immune from
this division when the Spirit of truth speaks.
51 years ago, when the Spirit of God led Daniels to St. Paul’s with an
agenda to integrate, this parish saw division—the leaders of this parish were
divided.
I want to be clear that this is not an indictment
on anybody of St. Paul’s – all of us would, at some point, find ourselves on
the wrong side of history if not for the God who saves the trajectory of
history through Christ.
Like the article for the week said, “The
Church is a messy place by nature. That’s what happens when a bunch of sinners
come together anywhere. But it is a messy place designed by God to be His face
to the World, and all those sinners reflect Him in unique ways.” So regardless of what side of the house one
may have been on, you, the members of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, were and are
an integral part of sharing in the way of the cross.
As Jesus says to his disciples, in
order to continue to share in this life that walks in the way of the cross, we,
as people of God, must be able to interpret the present time. Mind you that interpreting the present time
is far different than observing the present time. Anyone can observe that the state of our
union and the state of the world is very unstable on every front – politically,
religiously, socially…
But how do we interpret these
times? How do we make sense of what is
going on? And how does interpreting the
times through the lens of the gospel give us reason to hope instead of
despair? How to we interpret eternal
truth when that truth will inevitability cause division?
I read somewhere recently, “truth is
like poetry and most people hate poetry.”
I remember my first clergy conference when Bishop Parsley had a program
on poetry and for two days we had to listen to poetry. Most of the clergy desperately tried to run
and hide—I was one of them.
However, when the truth of God
kingdom draws near, there is nowhere to run and hide. The hills and mountains will come crumbling
down – that is those places where we insulate ourselves from hearing and seeing
the whole truth – a truth that, if we are all honest, will expose our inherent prejudice
toward those who differ most than us – a truth that will make it abundantly
clear just how broken our earthly kingdoms are set in contrast to the kingdom
of heaven.
In the end, the only place where we
can find refuge is a life hid with God in Christ—a life that Daniels knew about
just days before he died. As St. Paul
tells the Galatians, a life hid with Christ is a life where there is no longer
Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.
Again, this might seem like a wish
dream instead of a reality. While this
theology from St. Paul does speak to the nature of God’s heavenly kingdom that
is ruled over by Christ, we live in a place and time where race still matters
mainly because, consciously or subconsciously, we still define people by
race. And no I am not suggesting we
become color blind as that only seems to perpetuate the sins of racism.
It matters that Simone Manuel is the
first African American to win a gold medal because for much of our history
African American’s have not had easy access or any access to swimming pools and
some still do not. She represents a
group of people who have had to overcome barriers most of us in this
congregation haven’t experienced.
So who am I, a person who has always
had access to a swimming pool and whose daughter will never be scared of water,
to say that race doesn’t matter? Race
will only start to become irrelevant when people of all classes and cultures have
the same opportunities. And thankfully
we are moving in that direction and Simone’s gold medal is an indicator of that,
an indicator that we are moving toward a society where hyphens don’t matter but
today, given our nation’s history, they do.
Reflecting in this way tells me that
we can interpret the division we see as it relates to race as a sign that God
is working through our struggle and confusion to accomplish his purposes on
earth. I believe we tend to run from
truth because we know that truth will cause discomfort and chaos and even
division. But through the lens of the
gospel, this division is an indicator that the truth of God’s beloved community
is drawing near.
Practically speaking, I hope this
gospel truth gives you permission to engage in these difficult conversations on
race, conversations that carry a lot of emotion, a lot of pain, a lot of shame—trusting
that God is sorting out truth in the midst of the struggle.
I hope that a life hid with God in
Christ gives you permission to see the other as a child of God just the same as
you, as another human being whose heart longs to be made whole just the same as
you. I hope your life in God helps you
see in those who differ most from you the richness and beauty of God. I hope the truth that we are all made in
God’s image helps us have these conversations with an ear of respect and the
desire to understand where the other is coming from.
This conversation, no doubt, will
require us to be informed by the wisdom and patience of God. As Jimi Hendrix once said, “knowledge speaks,
wisdom listens.” Because at the end of
the day, what the human heart truly desires, is to know that it is not
alone. And the best way that I know how
to tell someone that they are not alone is to listen, listen to the deepest
fears and greatest joys of their heart.
I was reminded earlier this week that
our witness as Christians isn’t about telling people how they should be living
their life, it isn’t about giving really good advice. No, our Christian witness is about listening
to the other with an ear of understanding, our witness is about staying at the
table with the other until they arrive at truth on their own. Simply, it is about being present with the
lost and the lonely through whatever obstacles and challenges they face.
And the good news is that God’s
greatest desire is to be present with all his lost and lonely children. God’s greatest desire is to make a table
where all of his children can sit and know that they are loved and provided for
– a table that we will gather around in just a few minutes. Beloved, do not fear, for you are never alone
– your life is hid with God in Christ forever.
Amen.
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