Charlottesville Solidarity Vigil

Tonight (August 14) I spoke at the "Solidarity with Charlottesville Vigil" in Florence, AL. My remarks were an adaptation of my "sermon" from our prayer time yesterday. (I essentially preached two sermons yesterday - one addressing the events in Charlottesville that led into our prayer time and the other as planned and previously written.) Here is the manuscript from which I spoke. 

Spoiler Alert - I used more than one musical theater reference. 

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The Social Principles of the UMC includes this statement – Racism is the combination of the power to dominate by one race over other races and a value system that assumes that the dominant race is innately superior to the others. Racism includes both personal and institutional racism. 

It goes on to say this – Racism plagues and cripples our growth in Christ, inasmuch as it is antithetical to the gospel itself. Racism is sin. Racism is evil. White supremacy is racism.

Racism leads to attitudes of the superiority one race over all others. Racism leads to hate.

Both of these are antithetical to what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus calls us to equality, not an attitude of supremacy. Throughout the gospels, Jesus teaches by word and example the value of all people. Jesus stands up time and again for the vulnerable, the marginalized, the ignored and the pushed aside. Paul writes in two of his letters that when we are in Christ – when we clothe ourselves in Christ – there is no longer Greek or Jew, male or female, slave or free – I imagine if he wrote this today, it would include “there is no black or white, no hispanic or Caucasian” – in Christ we are all one. We are equal. Each person is created and loved by God. Each person is of sacred worth.

I heard someone say recently that equality of all people is a byproduct of love. Jesus calls us not to love one another – to hate, but to love. Over and over again Jesus tells us to love one another. When someone asks him the greatest of the commandments, he says love. In fact, we read in 1 John – Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.

Racism is hate. Nelson Mandela once said that no one is born hating other people because of their skin color or their religion. We learn to hate, he says, we are taught to hate. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote a song for their musical “South Pacific” called “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” It says this –

You've got to be taught To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught From year to year,
It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught! 

One of my favorite versions of that song is a medley along with Stephen Sondheim’s “Children Will Listen.” “Careful the things you say. Children will listen. Careful the things you do. Children will see and learn.”

Mandela said people are taught to hate. “But,” he said, “if they can learn to hate, they can learn to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” We have done too good a job, for far too long, of teaching our children to hate. It is time to teach them to love.

In our Baptismal vows we are asked – “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?” Do you? You were asked, “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” Do you?

Notice what those questions ask, and what they demand. Do you renounce wickedness? Reject evil? Those both mean more than just not doing bad things. To renounce wickedness and reject evil means that you speak out against it. It means, in this case, that when you see racism, you call it out. You identify it for the sin that it is. You reject it. You decry it.

It means that you don’t laugh at the racist joke, but not only that, you point out the wrongness of it. It means that you don’t tolerate racial slurs or hurtful stereotypes. It means you speak out when you hear such things.

Our Book of Discipline talks about the destructiveness of the sin of racism. It divides and marginalizes. It is destructive to our unity – the unity of our community, the unity of our nation. It is destructive to our very souls. Our call to love means we are called to wholeness and togetherness. We are called to reconciliation and peace. Our official statement on Racial Justice affirms that the United Methodist Church commits itself to healing and wholeness. It says we, as a church, will seek to eliminate racism in every facet of life and in society at large.

And like so many other things...it begins with me. My heart.

I invite you to take an inventory of your own heart. To search your own life for the hate you’ve been taught. As our Bishop suggested in an email this morning, “Ask God to show you ways you unknowingly contribute to the sins of injustice and racism.” Confess. Repent. Then act. Speak out. Let us all commit ourselves to moving toward a more just and, dare I say, more loving society.