Mark 14: 1-9, Romans 7: 14-20
Rev. Patte Henderson
Bill’s sermon theme for Lent has focused on various views of “broken places.” When he asked me to offer the sermon for today he suggested that I might use “Generosity in the Broken Places” as my theme. Having this in my mind, noodling around in my head for the last couple of weeks, left me struggling particularly with the meaning of “generosity”.
I discovered a number of definitions, and as I did so, I related the various definitions to much that is true about all of you, this congregation of The Congregational United Church of Christ.
For instance, the first definition I came across was that generosity is the ‘giving without expectation of gaining anything in return,’ the offering of time, assets, talents to aid someone in need perhaps. The collection of food and the time some of you spend in volunteering for the Crisis Center of Johnson County seems to fit this definition. And the story from Mark that I shared concerning the woman of Bethany who broke her alabaster jar of perfume to pour over Jesus’ head. Her baptismal gift, an act of pure love and adoration, was certainly given without thought of personal gain. Jesus defined it as preparation for his burial….giving with no thought of return…
Generosity being ‘an ideal to aspire to and achieve,’ is a definition that means more than a democratic obligation that is the duty of all to practice. I see this in the success of our yearly Stewardship campaign. And more than that, the determination of our Sunday School children to set a goal for raising funds to donate to a variety of needs in our community, country and world. As a matter of fact, I believe today they will reach their latest goal of contributing $100.00 for the Shelter House which they wanted to accomplish by Easter.
The science of generosity is the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly. How well that defines what we do when we serve at the Free Lunch program and when we gather coats to be given every year before the coming of winter.
No one can contest our determination to be generous in so many ways.
And then there has been the whirlwind of thoughts concerning how Bill defines the broken places. His story of the pizza chef saving the freezing and hungry migrants; the underground shelter in Damascus housing frightened and desperate Syrians who only want peace and a return to their homes; the realization that even our seemingly safe Iowa City has problems of homelessness, hunger, poverty. All of these situations exhibit the broken places that trouble Bill.
Early in 2017, some of you chose to read a book, Waking Up White, by Debby Irving, and then you met together to discuss, in my own thinking, the shocking message of white supremacy that Irving presented.
One of the positive memories I have of my father was something he said when our family was swimming in a public swimming pool while in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We had been the only people in the pool until a group of 6 or 8 Black children came running out of the dressing room, jumped in with great splashes and basically took over the pool. My brother and sisters and I huddled around my father and my older sister said, “I wish those people would leave. It’s not fun anymore.”
My father gave each of us a hard stare and said, “these children have just as much of a right to be here as we do.” That was the beginning of my awareness of people of color.
I’m a child of the 60s and I was keenly aware of the Civil Rights activities going on in a part of the country I was not familiar with. I read a number of books by and about African-Americans: Black Like Me, Black Boy, Five Smooth Stones, among them. In 1964, at the age of 14, I begged my parents to take the family to Alabama so we could be part of the ‘Freedom Marches.’
But it was Debby Irving’s book that completely shook me up as I realized that with all my sympathy for people of color, and indignation at people who were racial bigots, I was just as guilty of the feelings of “white supremacy” that Irving expressed.
As much as I’ve wanted people of color to have the right to vote and live wherever they wanted to and go to my school, I also thought that if they just acted like I do then surely they would be more accepted in our society. As long as they didn’t “act like negroes”, I was sure I would love to have a Black friend.
Barack Obama responded to the criticism of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermon during Obama’s first run for president, in which Wright criticized the United States government on the failure to treat “citizens of Indian descent,” “citizens of Japanese descent,” and “citizens of African descent” fairly. These people were put on reservations, put in internment camps, and put in chains.
Obama said, “The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning….the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”[i]
In my opinion the most broken place in the world is the misunderstanding that exits between the races. And the divide comes between not just Caucasians and Blacks, but between Caucasians and Native Americans, Asians Americans, Latin Americans, Pacific-Islander Americans and Arab Americans. Well, everyone whose skin is darker that “white Europeans.”
Debby Irving writes, “I can think of no bigger misstep in American history than the invention and perpetuation of the idea of white superiority …racism crushes spirits, incites divisiveness, and justifies the estrangement of entire groups of individuals who, like all humans, come into the world full of goodness, with a desire to connect, and with boundless capacity to learn and grow…no one alive today created this mess, but everyone alive today has the power to work on undoing it.”[ii]
This is where generosity comes into this sermon.
- Giving without expecting anything in return
- An ideal to aspire to and achieve
- The virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly
We can’t undo the centuries of slavery. We can’t pretend the internment camps didn’t exist. We can’t take back racial profiling.
What we CAN do is move forward from here. We can make THIS season of Lent the time when we, every person in this room, can to choose to make radical changes in the way we think of the relationships possible for the children of God.
In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans, we feel the pain he is expressing that he doesn’t understand his own actions.
Let’s read this together. Please turn to the third scripture lesson and read with me… “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery uner sin. I so no understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But if in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
“the sin that dwells within us….”
An IPR program I was listening to was explaining a program that was introduced in a preschool – children 3 and 4 years old – that gave them experiences in acknowledging different skin colors. The children were NOT being taught to be color-blind; to pretend that humans don’t come in different skin shades. They were being taught to appreciate the diversity in the colors; to find the awesome wonder of God in creating us all with the same body parts enclosed in various skin tones. To realize we are, each and every human being, endowed with similar gifts for living and being all that we can be without prejudice, without being held back because of the color of one’s skin.
Last weekend, my sister and I took a trip to Atlanta, Georgia for the wedding of our niece. While we were there, we took time to visit the Jimmy Carter Center as well as Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Martin Luther King, Jr. historic site. While at the church we joined a group who were invited to hear a gentleman who could recite King’s “I have a dream speech” in a very similar voice. It was moving, very inspiring: “I have a dream that one day my four little children will join hands with little white children and sing with joy – free at last, free at last…”
I was reminded – like a bolt – of Martin Luther King’s admonishment of hate; his desire for peace and understanding between ALL people with nonviolence as his password.
An article in the March 5th Press Citizen gave a hopefulness to moving in this direction here in Johnson County. A new group of churches and community organizations have started to meet to fight systemic racism, inequality and inequity. They are dedicated to finding ways to work against actions that threaten the livelihood of people of color in our community. Iowa City Mayor Jim Throgmorton has stated, “…the moment we are living through demands moral clarity, courage, and an ability to strengthen bonds of community across racial, ethnic and political divides. This is a time,” he said. “for us to love one another, to care for one another, to help one another. It is time to stand strong together -men and women, blacks and whites, gay and straights, disabled and abled, Latinos and Asians, union laborers and scholars, Muslims , Jews, Christians, and others – stand together in solidarity with everyone who is at risk.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes”
“Do not raise your hand to strike. Do not open your mouth in anger, but remain still. How can the one who wants to do evil things against you hurt you? It does not hurt you; it hurts the other person. Suffering injustice does not hurt the Christian, but doing injustice does. Indeed, evil can only do one thing to you, namely, make you also become evil, If it does, then it wins, Therefore, do not repay evil with evil….
How can we overcome evil? By our forgiving it endlessly. How does that happen? By our seeing enemies as they really are: as people for whom Christ died, as people Christ loves.”[iii]
As we move ever closer to Holy Week, we know the time has come Christ to be arrested, tried, put to death (His suffering), so that we may know of the love of God for every, every single human in His creation.
Christ’s suffering is a gift from God. Christ generously suffered and bore on the cross our failings – NOT OUR sufferings.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to suffer, because we DO. Because until WE suffer the change of our hearts to fully understand our racist, bigoted, historic assumptions about a hierarchy of acceptance of the equality of ALL humanity, we will not be granted reconciliation with God.
As Christ so generously bore our sins, we must generously be bearers of the sins of our ancestors to restore the peace and harmony of Eden for all creation.
Amen.
[i] Philips, Steve, Brown is the New White pg. 92
[ii] Irving, Debby, Waking up White, pg viii
[iii] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, God is on the Cross,, pg. 42