The Need for Change

There is a struggle going on right now for the heart and soul of the faith tradition I serve.  Actually, I believe that the "heart and soul" of the faith is safe and well, but the institutional expression of that faith, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Affiliated Congregations, is struggling with how to live in to our stated commitment of becoming a truly anti-racist, anti-oppression, multi-cultural community. 

The Unitarian, Universalist, and modern Unitarian Universalist traditions have a long (although decidedly mixed) history regarding issues of racism.  This history has been powerfully covered in the writings of the Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed, and the nearly exhaustive book, The Arc of the Universe is Long: Unitarian Universalism, Anti-Racism, and the Journey from Calgary.  Yet many see the so-called Black Empowerment Controversy of the late 1960s, as the catalyst for all the successes, failures, and struggles which form the foundation of where we are today.  Over and over again, this majority-white religious tradition has been challenged to look at just what it means to be a majority-white institution committed to the dismantling of the white supremacist culture in which we all "live, move, and have our being." 

In recent years there has been a strong call by people in historically, and still, marginalized groups within our movement for us -- as individuals, as congregations, and as an Association -- to really, fully, deeply come to terms with the ways in which we participate in and perpetuate the systems and structures of the white supremacist culture that is the dominant culture in the United States and which informs and "infects" every institution.  Especially those of us who identify or are identified as white are being challenged to recognize that we, ourselves, though good-hearted and well-meaning, are mired in the very muck we claim we are committed to cleaning up.

This is not to say that the commitment we claim is false.  When I first moved to Charlottesville, Virginia -- where I have been serving the UU congregation for the past 8 years -- I met with an African American pastor with whom my predecessors had established a relationship.  I'm paraphrasing him a bit here, but he said to me, "We know about you Unitarian Universalists.  We know how you've shown up over the years to support the African American community.  We know how you answered Dr. King's call to march in Selma.  We know about your commitment to racial justice."  And when the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr. came to Charlottesville to speak following the events of the summer of 2017, it was not by coincidence that he choose to speak from the pulpit of the Unitarian Universalist congregation.  Many UUs have spent a good deal of their lives, and a lot of their heart and soul, working for the cause of racial justice.  That's a fact that simply cannot be denied.

Yet that fact, that commitment, is not what's being challenged today.  What's at issue is not whether we UUs are committed to racial justice, but rather what that commitment calls on us to do -- again, especially those of us who identify or are identified as white.  In the years since the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and '60s the analysis of the many, and often insidious, ways racism works has evolved. 

One example is the growing insistence on using the phrase "white supremacy" where in the past one might have said, "white privilege" or, more simply, "racism."  For some whites the term is thought to be too provocative, too inflammatory, especially when it's being applied to us.  We might be willing recognize that there's a sense in which we are "racist," because of the inherent "racial bias" with which we've been inculcated from our earliest days, and we might even be comfortable acknowledging that we benefit from "white privilege," yet we draw the line at using the phrase "white supremacy," because we think that it should be reserved for those who march with tiki torches, while waving Confederate and Nazi flags.

Yet anti-racist scholars and activists note that the term "racism" is rather vague because it doesn't explicitly say anything about the power dynamics involved.  The bizarre notion of "reverse racism" can conceivably exist comfortably within the term "racism."  "White supremacy," however, clearly indicates that the issue is not just racial prejudice, but specifically all that follows on the idea that white history, culture, assumptions, norms, practices, perspectives, etc., are superior to those of people of color or, to put it another way, are "supreme."  So, while not every white person is a white supremacist, we all participate in, and benefit from, the culture of white supremacy.

What is being questioned today is whether or not we white UUs will evolve with this evolving understanding of the dynamics of white supremacy culture -- an understanding that comes directly out of the lived experience of people of color and those of intersecting oppression.  Another way of asking this is, will we who identify as white actually listen to and believe what we're told by our siblings of color about how we (even if unintentionally and unwittingly) participate in and perpetuate the systems and structures of the oppressions we are committed to ending?  Will we believe what we're told about what's needed to actually dismantle the culture of white supremacy, even if what we're told is different from, and maybe even contradicts, what we've always been told and what our own assumptions and "reason" tells us?

This is the challenge with which we are struggling today:  will those of us who identify as white within this predominantly and historically white tradition be willing to see ourselves and our institutions through the eyes of people of color, and will we be willing to change because of what we then see?  This is the direction a great many UUs desire to see the Association move, discomforting and disorienting though it will necessarily be.  We believe our faith calls us to nothing less than such a transformation. 

There is not universal agreement, however.  This disagreement gained public attention in Spokane, Washington this past week where our Association was having its annual General Assembly.  A member of our clergy distributed copies of his self-published book in which he decried what he sees as the Association's fall into "safetyism," "political correctness," and "identitarianism." 

The Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance responded with "An Open Letter From White UU Ministers," which was signed by over 300 ordained Unitarian Universalist ministers.  It is even more important to read the responses from DRUUMM -- Diverse  Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries -- and POCI -- the People of Color and Indigenous Chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association -- as these provide the perspective of the people of color who were most directly harmed.

Although I was not in Spokane, I asked to have my name added to the "Open Letter" because even without reading the book I have heard other UUs from historically, and still, marginalized groups describing the pain they felt and the harm the book's content caused.  I believe their testimony, and need no more "proof" than that to know that I must place myself in solidarity with them.

I will read the book, though, because as a person who identifies as white I think it is incumbent upon me to know what other white folks are saying, what "case" they're making to push back against the call to be transformed in and through the work of transforming our society.  In the little I've read so far I'm saddened, though not surprised, to see arguments that I've heard in the congregation I've been serving from people there who think that the way we were going about the work of racial justice was wrong.  The struggle that's going on in the larger Association is going on in local congregations as well.

I do not believe that I know everything about the work of our mutual liberation.  I know for certain that much of what I think and see has been conditioned by the very culture I am committed to changing.  I recognize that the truly anti-racist, anti-oppression, multicultural Beloved Community I am committed to working for will be entirely different than the world I know, undoubtedly unimaginably so.  And I know that getting there will require, will demand, that I undertake the painful work of transforming myself.  I do not like this.  I would rather not.  Yet if I truly am committed to dismantling the white supremacy culture I know that I have no choice but to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

To Be, Or Not To Be ...

I've recently been reading a book by Juana Bordas, Salsa, Soul, and Spirit:  Leadership for a Multicultural Age (New Approaches to Leadership from Latino, Black, and American Indian Communities).  This book as been read, and is being read, by UU congregations around the country as well as by Association leadership.  After all, we say we're serious about wanting to be a more truly multicultural community -- both at the level of the local congregation and the national movement -- yet Unitarian Universalism is steeped in Eurocentric history, assumptions, and norms ... so much so that for many of us it's hard to imagine that there's any other ("valid") way of doing things because we're so used to thinking that the way we do things is "the way things should be done."  If we -- White UUs -- want to move toward a true multiculturalism, then we're most likely going to have to open ourselves to learning some new ways of doing things.  (If only so that we can be more aware of how "our ways" don't resonate with anyone.)  Hence the interest around Ms. Bordas's book.

On FaceBook this morning I read a really insightful -- and no doubt for many a really challenging -- post.  It was written by a man named Chris Crass, and made me think of some of the things I'd read in Bordas's book.  First I'll pull out some of those quote and then, with his permission, I'm reprinting Chris' FaceBook post.

From Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: 

When you answer the call to become a multicultural leader, you commit to honoring the unique experiences and background of each person you encounter while connecting with the core human essence we all share.  (p. 199)

[T]he limitations of hierarchical pluralism:  "Dominant cultural values are at the top and are impermeable.  Everyone has to conform to them.  People who are different can come in and be included, but they must understand their traditions don't mean anything.  Their values are subservient and they must adapt."  (p. 203) 

Because Whites are often blind to their own existence as a group, as well as their advantages and privileges, they don't understand that business as usual is really doing business our way.  (p. 203)

Egalitarian pluralism is representative of all people in an organization, not just those who have traditionally held power.  Organizations must be willing to reinvent themselves by altering their language, structure, and methods of operation by welcoming diverse leaders to the table to share their perspectives and experiences. ... Changing structures, norms, and values, is the key to egalitarian pluralism and the foundation for multicultural leadership. (p. 204)

And here's the post that got me thinking:

To become an anti-racist church, the key question, for a white/white majority church, is not "how to get people of color to join the church", it is making a prolonged, spiritually-rooted, engaged commitment to uprooting white supremacy within the church and taking collective action to eradicate it in society.

Our goal is not to have white people sit alongside a person of color so as to affirm that those white people aren't racist. Our goal is to build and be part of beloved community united to end structural oppression and unleash collective liberation in our congregations, schools, neighborhoods, workplaces and society.

Our goal is to join hands across the divisions of racism in our faith and in our communities, find and affirm our humanity in each other, and join our hearts and minds to the task of destroying white supremacy in every worldview, policy, law, institution and governing body of our society. 

For our churches to be places of healing for people of color and white people from the nightmare of racism. For our churches to be places of nourishment for people of color and white people about the multiracial struggles of our people to advance economic, racial, and gender justice and the continual process of overcoming oppression within the movement on the journey to end oppression in society. For our churches to raise our children, of all backgrounds, to be freedom fighters and practitioners of liberation values. 

For our churches to be spiritually alive communities of worship, learning from and contributing to liberation cultures and legacies. For our churches to be welcoming homes for people of all colors, sexualities, classes, ages, genders, citizenship statuses, and abilities. For our churches to regularly be inviting us into and preparing us for courageous action for collective liberation, held in loving community for the long haul. Let our theology and our churches be active agents in the world, to help us all get free, together.

Being the kind of community Chris is describing will take those of us who are used to -- have grown up in, find comfortable and "sensible" -- the mores and norms of the dominant Eurocentric culture to become uncomfortable.  The new, the unfamiliar is usually uncomfortable and we want folks to learn our ways so that they can fit in.  Re-read the second quotation form Salsa:  

"Dominant cultural values are at the top and are impermeable.  Everyone has to conform to them.  People who are different can come in and be included, but they must understand their traditions don't mean anything.  Their values are subservient and they must adapt." [italics added]

This is all true, of course, not just in the context of race.  If "we" want to be truly welcoming to young adults then we need to make peace with the fact that for many of them their phones and tablets are an integrated part of how they think and act in the world.  (This isn't true for all, of course.  No group is a monolith, but it is true for many.)  So "we" want to welcome "them," yet look askance when they assume that that welcome includes them being themselves.

(I keep writing"we" because I am aware that not all UUs are a part of the dominant culture and so it isn't actually true to talk about Unitarian Universalists as if we're all the same.  Yet there is a dominant culture within our movement and a majority demographic, so when speaking of and for that dominant perspective I'm putting quotation marks around "we" so as to remind us all that that "we" doesn't include us all.)

"We" say "we" want to be truly welcoming to people of all economic classes and yet, as one example, "we" still expect everyone to participate in the annual pledge drive as if everyone had the financial means to do so.  "We" say we want to welcome "them," yet in a myriad of ways most of "us" never even see "we" reiterate the message that "they" not as good -- useful, productive, valuable and valued -- as "us."

"We" want to be welcoming to people with a wide variety of abilities, yet don't see making our buidlings accessible as a priority.  

"We" want to be welcoming to transgender people, yet want to make sure that "they" use the bathroom that makes "us" feel most comfortable.

"We" want to be welcoming to families with young children, yet are unwilling to share space with little ones who are age-appropriately squirmy and noisy.  And while we're on the subject of families with young children -- "we" say that "we" want there to be greater integration of these families with the rest of the church community, yet prevent that very integration when "we" insist that "they" volunteer in "our" Religious Education program because none of "us" want to do so.

I could, of course, continue.  In each of these examples, though, the thing to see is that the dominant "we" want the more marginal "they" to conform to "our" expectations and example, and to ensure that "we" are not at all put out or discomforted by "their" presence.  "We" claim as a desire a more multicultural community -- something that's a change from what's true now -- yet "we" are not willing to be changed in order to make it come true.  To put it simply, though:  until "we" are, it won't.

Hear Juana Bordas again:  "Organizations must be willing to reinvent themselves by altering their language, structure, and methods of operation by welcoming diverse leaders to the table to share their perspectives and experiences."  A question for those who so blithely name "diversity" as a value -- are you willing to reinvent yourself?

Pax tecum,

RevWik

to look clear-eyed and what's happening all around us

I am angry.  I'm heartbroken.  I despair.  I feel impotent.  My heart keens and my soul is screaming.

Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

Akai Gurley in Brooklyn.

Aura Rain Rosser in Ann Arbor.

Tanisha Anderson in Cleveland.

Roshad McIntosh in Chicago.

Darien Hunt in Saratoga Springs.

Ezell Ford and Omar Brego in Los Angeles.

Eric Garner, Kajieme Powell, Vonderitt D. Meyers, Jr., John Crawford III, Cary Ball Jr., Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Stewart, Eula Love, Amadu Diallo, Oscar Grant, Patrick Dorismond, Malice Green, Tyisha Miller, Sean Bell, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Margaret LaVerne Mitchell ...

I could go on, of course.  I could go on, but I'd have to go on, and on, and on.  The Stolen Lives Project has collected data on over 2,000 cases of people killed by law enforcement in the 1990s alone.  (You can put a face to some of the names here.)

Were all of these people people of color?  No, but the vast majority were.  The incidents of violent interactions between law enforcement and citizens skews overwhelmingly along racial lines.  (And a Google search on the phrase "racial disparities in police violence" yields more evidence than any reasonable person could need.)

Were all of these people innocent?  Of course not, yet there are far, far too many cases of innocent people being beaten or shot by police officers, and of these the victims were predominantly young men of color.

Law enforcement personnel have an extraordinarily difficult job.  They must decide -- often with virtually not time -- how to respond to threatening and seemingly threatening situations.  I would not want to do what they have to do, and I do believe that the majority of police officers are good people trying to do good things and are not secretly "gunning for black people."

Yet we live in a culture that still considers white, heterosexual men the norm and which casts people of color (and women, and homosexuals, and ...) as Other.  Brown skinned men, and in particular young brown skinned men are seen as "dangerous" and "threatening" by white skinned people -- consciously or unconsciously.  Think of how typical it is for a white person to feel ever-so-slightly apprehensive when they see a black man walking down the street toward them.  It's unconscious.  It's instinctive.  It's reinforced by countless means, both subtle and overt.  (And by "countless" I really do mean that there are far too many ways to count that reinforce these stereotypes.)

And, so, in this context -- the real world in which we live -- it almost doesn't matter if, in any particular case, the shooting is "justified;" there are always exceptions.  But the pattern ... the pattern is where the problem is.  It is the pattern of unjustifiable police targeting of people of color for violence that leads to the cry, "Black Lives Matter!"

It seems to me that one would have to be willfully looking away not to see what is happening.  And, so, I am angry.  I'm heartbroken.  I despair.  My heart screams and my soul is keening.  And I feel impotent.  What can I do -- a straight, white, middle class, well-educated, minister ensconced in a bubble of privilege?  What can I possibly do from here -- from my own lived experience -- to make any kind of change?  Joseph Osmundson and David J. Leonard, in an essay on Huffington post, name "12 Things White People Can Actually Do After the Ferguson Decision."  It is well worth reading, and all thinking white people should not only read it but follow all the links, as well.

The other thing I can do -- and you can do, too, if you find yourself in the privileged position of being white in this society -- can take advantage of our white privilege and speak up ... speak out.  The world -- okay, let's be honest, the white world ... the dominant world -- listens more closely when a white person speaks out.  And if you're a white male, all the better.  So, if you need to, pull your head out of the obfuscating fog and look clear-eyed and what's happening all around us.  (Just because it's not your experience does not mean it's not happening.)  And then talk about it.  Post on FaceBook and Twitter.  Bring it up at holiday parties (a risk, sure, but nowhere near the risk of "walking while black" has become).

Prove that black lives matter.  Prove that all lives matter.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Of Moses and Me ...

I must confess ... sometimes the sermon I write turns out to be the wrong sermon.  That happened with the one I worked on for this past Sunday -- "Go Down, Moses!"  I worked hard on it; thought about it; developed it.  And then, when I'd committed most of it to paper I realized that it wasn't the right message for the service.  And rather than change the service, I changed the sermon.  I wrote another one.  But I still had the original idea(s) floating around my head -- and saved in DropBox -- so I decided to turn it into a blog post.  This blog post, in fact.  And, so, here is the sermon I didn't preach on the subject of Moses and the Exodus:

First, a little backstory.  It was Joseph, son of Abraham, who really got this story started.  Or maybe it was his brothers.  But you may recall that Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and decided to do what older brothers often want to do – they decided to kill him.  At the last minute, though, the come to their senses and “merely” sell him into slavery.  And that brings Joseph to Egypt.

Joseph’s story is filled with as many plot twists as an episode of Scandal, but suffice it to say that he eventually becomes the right-hand man to the Pharaoh himself.  And when, thanks to Joseph, Egypt has weathered an economic collapse (aka, a famine) much better than any of the surrounding nations, people from all over flood in for aid.  Including Joseph’s family.  And that’s what brings the nascent Hebrew people to Egypt.

Over time the Israelites do well for themselves and they become quite numerous.  And as long as Joseph is at the right-hand of the Pharaoh, or as long as Joseph is remembered by the Pharaoh’s successors, things are okay.  But eventually there comes a day, as the Bible tells us, in which a new Pharaoh does not remember Joseph, and everything goes to hell pretty quickly.

The exodus story proper begins with this Pharaoh wanting control over all these now undesirable “others.” He condemns them to slavery.  And then he increases the brutality of their enslavement.  Yet apparently even that wasn’t enough for him, so he orders that the midwives who attend to Hebrew women should kill every male child as it was being born.  And then there’s one of the great acts of civil disobedience on record – the midwives refuse to do this, and explain their failure to follow the Pharaoh’s edict by saying that the Hebrew women were too strong and too healthy and were always giving birth too quickly for the midwives to get there on time. 

But this doesn’t stop Pharaoh.  He just changed his decree, and now ordered that every newborn Hebrew male be thrown into the Nile to drown.  When Moses was born his mother had a different idea, so she threw her son into the Nile … in a basket so that he might live.  (It’s worth noting, I think, that many, many years later another King – Herod – orders that all Jewish boys be killed and that another savior – namely Jesus – was himself saved from such a fate by his parents.  Not only that, but there’s the irony that Jesus’ family go to Egypt to ensure their safety!)

The plan worked.   Moses lived.  And he was found by the Pharaoh’s daughter who took him in, ensuring not only that Moses survive but that he would thrive in a life of privilege.  He grew up a member of the Pharaoh’s household – you might say that he had the opportunity to “pass.”  While his people suffered in slavery he experienced endless freedoms. 

But one day he witnesses and Egyptian overseer mistreating a Hebrew slave, and Moses couldn’t take it.  He intervened on behalf of the outcast, the oppressed; he intervened and killed the Egyptian, burying his body in the desert so that no one would know.  The next day, however, when he saw to Hebrew men arguing he tried to mediate, but they looked at him and said, “What?  Are you going to kill us now?”

So Moses took off.  He ran away.  Oh his own, by himself, of his own accord he’d tried to do something to ameliorate the suffering he saw around him, tried to do something to redress the wrongs the oppressor had done to the oppressed, but it was too much for him to take on.  He flinched.  He hightailed it out of Dodge and tried to put the whole thing behind him.

Jump ahead a bit.  Moses is in a comfy situation in the nearby state of Midian.  He’s married.  He’s got a family.  He’s got a good job with his father-in-law, and he’s doing pretty well for himself.  He’s become a man of substance, a success.  And while it’s not the luxury he knew in the Pharaoh’s palace, at least out here he could forget about all that injustice in his homeland.

But one day …  and that’s a motif, really, throughout the Bible’s stories.  Things are going along normally, life seems solid and stable, “but one day” …

One day Moses was out tending the sheep of his father-in-law when he decided to take them to a new grazing area.  And then he saw it – a bush that appeared to be on fire but wasn’t being consumed by it.  And even if you didn’t know any of that other stuff you probably know this – out of the fire the voice of God spoke to Moses by name and called him to go back to Egypt and free the Hebrew people.

So let this sink in for a minute.  Imagine yourself in Moses’ sandals.  You were raised in a life of privilege and freedom.  You’ve taken this life for granted.  It’s all you know, yet all around you there is untold suffering.  And then one day – there is that motif again – one day you realize that you really have more in common with the oppressed than with the oppressor with whom you have identified for so long.

It would take some serious soul searching, wouldn’t it, before you’d know how to respond, right?  It’d take some serious shuffling of perspectives and assumptions.  It’d take a radical reconstruction of the way you see the world, right?

As I began writing this I was well aware of the way(s) in which the story of the exodus of the Hebrew people from their bondage in Egypt was a powerful story for the enslaved people in early America.  It’s not for nothing that famed Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman come to be called, “the female Moses.”  This story had profound resonance for African Americans in those days.

And when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr spoke about having “been to the mountaintop” yet perhaps not being able to “get there” with his people, he was making a clear reference to the exodus tale, as Moses also viewed the Promised Land from a mountaintop yet was never to set foot within its borders.

So, as I said, as I began writing I was well aware of the many ways this story was evoked, and how it provoked, the causes of African American freedom and equality throughout our nation’s history.  What I hadn’t realized until I reached this point, is that Moses can be a powerful model for Euro-Americans who are doing – or want to be doing – anti-racism/anti-oppression work.

As we’ve seen, Moses was raised in luxury and privilege.  And because of his status he no doubt never really questioned it – the way his life was was the way life should be.  He was aware, certainly, of the plight of the enslaved Jews, and poor Egyptians as well, yet it seems reasonable to assume that if he thought about it much at all he’d have thought that his lifestyle and life-experiences were the norm and that these “others” were aberrations.

Isn’t this very much like what has been learned about the state of White Americans?  Speaking as one, haven’t we been raised in (at least relative if not outright) luxury and privilege.  Yes, of course, poor White Americans still suffer from poverty, and there are some extremely successful Black Americans.  Yet it is also true that if you compare poor Whites and poor Blacks, and wealthy Whites and wealthy Blacks, the lives of these Black Americans are generally more difficult than their White counterparts.  And, so, White Americans can understand Moses’ mindset as the story begins to unfold.  We know (to some extent and, again, at least relatively) what it’s like to live in Pharaoh’s house.

And then there comes that moment when Moses sees the Egyptian overseer beating the enslaved Hebrews, and it is no longer possible for him to ignore the injustice.  He has to act.  And at least among Euro-Americans who are working for racial equality, wasn’t there usually such moment?  Wasn’t there usually some encounter, some discussion, some acquaintance, some event that made action all but inevitable?  So we can relate to Moses here, as well.

And then … Moses runs away.  Rather than try to do something about the injustice he has now seen, he turns his back on it.  Pretends it doesn’t exist.  His freedom included the freedom to ignore the enslavement of the Hebrews, to close his eyes to their oppression.   Which is what a lot of well-meaning White folk do as well. This pattern is so pervasive that it led Dr. King to say, “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

But then there’s Moses’ fateful encounter at that Burning Bush.  For him it was the voice of his God, for us White Americans it could be so many different things, but many of us, too, know the experience of something that changes us.  Changes the way we look at ourselves and look at the world.  Changes us so that we not only oppose the oppression of others but that we come to identify with the oppressed.  That we see, as Moses did, that the enslavement, the oppression of “others” but of “our people,” for we are one human family, after all.

And then we, too, if we’re brave enough, go back to Pharaoh, whom we know so well because we grew up in the Pharaoh’s household, and demand that he free those whom he has enslaved.  We acknowledge the role that we, ourselves, have played in “their” oppression, and we declare our decision to stand with “them” until there is only “us.”

Two more thoughts here.  First, it’s worth noting that Moses responds to God’s call by arguing that he’s not the right guy for the job.  He says that it’d take an eloquent orator and that he stutters.  He says that his brother would really be a better fit.  He says, “Really, God – couldn’t you find someone better than me?”  

The answer, of course, is, “no,” and that’s the answer we will receive when we wonder aloud (or to ourselves) whether someone else might be better suited to the task of undoing racism and ending oppression.  Nope.  It’s up to you; it’s up to me.  Again, speaking as and to White Americans, we’re the ones who are going to have to do this.  Only a member of Pharaoh’s own household will have access to Pharaoh, and only one who has herself or himself experienced the privilege of the oppressor can demand the release of the oppressed.

The second thought is this – it took ten times, for Moses to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrew people go.  And in between each attempt there were some awful plagues that came upon Egypt, and yet the Pharaoh refused to budge until it got really personal.  In the story it was the plague of the death of every firstborn child and animal in Egypt that tipped the scales.  In the United States in the early 60s it was the images from the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, or of the rubble of the 16^th Street Baptist Church that broke open the hardened hearts of most of White America.  (And, of course, there are some hearts and minds still walled off, which is why there’s still work to do.)

This work is not easy.  It is not comfortable.  Change will not happen overnight – nor can we say it has already come.  Some, yes, but far from all that is needed.  And it will never come if we who’ve lived in Pharaoh’s house are unwilling to step out of that house so that we are both insiders and outsiders.  Yet the promise of the exodus story is that change will come eventually.  Freedom cannot be stopped up forever.


Let’s commit to doing what we can to help that day come sooner.

Pax tecum,

RevWik