Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
It’s Time
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, January 31, 2020, fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.
Text: Mark 1:14-28
Next month will mark 9 years since 18 year-old Trayvon Martin was murdered. July of this year will mark 8 years since the acquittal of the man who shot Trayvon and the outcry that spurred the Black Lives Matter movement that continues to mobilize the fight to end State-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy. July will also mark 7 years since I began my ministry at Foundry. My appointment began in July of 2014, the month that Eric Garner was strangled to death by police in New York City. A month after my arrival, 18 year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. In those first months as the Senior Pastor of Foundry, I was reading as much commentary on these events as I could get my hands on, was praying a lot, and was in conversation with the Foundry clergy team—then consisting of Pastors Dawn, Theresa, Al, and Ben—about how to faithfully respond and position Foundry in the struggle. There was so much I didn’t know—I knew enough to know that!
In November of 2014, 12 year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police in Cleveland. A couple of weeks later, the second week of Advent, 2014, I preached a sermon in which I proclaimed “black lives matter” aloud for the first time in worship. I confessed my own failures as an ally in the struggle. And I encouraged our mostly white congregation to not use our privilege to “opt out” but to engage, to recommit to the concrete work of what we now call anti-racism.
Over the next year, a new Racial Justice Ministry Team offered regular studies and opportunities to engage in learning and advocacy. In 2016, our first Scholar in Residence was the Rev. Dr. Alton B. Pollard, III, then Dean of Howard Divinity School who challenged and taught us through a series of book studies, films, and facilitated conversations. I mention some of this history in my book, Sacred Resistance, particularly referencing the debate about whether and why to hang a banner outside Foundry—a debate that began in the summer of 2014. As I wrote in the book:
Some in the congregation wanted to immediately hang a large banner emblazoned with #BlackLivesMatter outside the church building. In an intense moment during a workshop with the Rev. Dr. Alton Pollard, Dean of Howard Divinity School, African American members expressed concern about hanging a banner without the engagement and commitment of the whole congregation. To publicly communicate a commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement without knowing the form our solidarity would take—actions, relationships, money, tangible support—smacked for many of an attempt to “check the box” and say we’d done our work on white supremacy without having to engage the same kind of deep work that had taken place around marriage equality. Dr. Pollard also made it quite clear that if the congregation chose to step out with such clear advocacy for racial equity and justice, there would be negative consequences. “Just get ready,” he said. Stories abound not only of the defacement of signs and banners proclaiming Black Lives Matter, but also the ongoing violence against black and brown bodies and those who stand with them. Foundry’s intentional work of engagement and advocacy continues unabated. But at the time of this writing, there is no banner.
The book was published in 2018. Last summer, we hung a banner proclaiming Black Lives Matter and littered our lawn with signs saying so as well. It was time. It was time because we had both committed to the Journey to Racial Justice and were well underway in the work when the blood of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd cried out from the ground for justice. Today, we have a 21 foot banner across our lawn with the words proclaiming our commitment. We are actively engaged with sibling congregations Asbury UMC and John Wesley AMEZ, and the JRJ is crafting a strategy for meaningful change. I am grateful for the ongoing, unfolding work. And now I’m going to press pause on the Foundry story to shift over to our Gospel story for today.
What we receive in our text is the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. Right at the beginning of Jesus’s appointment his cousin and partner in ministry—the prophet John, known as the Baptizer—is arrested for calling out Herod to his face for marrying his brother’s wife—a flagrant disregard for the law. We are told later in the story that, while in custody, John is murdered in a brutal way. (Mk 6.17-29)
And also, right off the bat, Jesus encounters a “man with an unclean (akatharto) spirit.” You may hear in the Greek “akatharto” the same root that gives us the English “catharsis.” A catharsis is a purgation, a purification. Akatharto literally means not purged, not clean. There are many ways we might think about this, but at the most basic level, akatharto refers to something that separates from God or is against God or God’s will. Akatharto spirits or energies need to be purged so that a person can freely experience life in God’s love, mercy, and justice.
The story reveals that Jesus has that “thing” (exousia)—that extraordinary power, influence, and moral authority—that moves people, that changes lives. And when the man with the akatharto spirit encounters Jesus, he knows he is exposed, he knows that Jesus knows—and that Jesus, through that knowing, has the power to literally call out that in him which is not of God. What happens next is that the unclean spirits do not leave quietly or peacefully. They scream and do bodily harm to the one who’d been giving them harbor.
So, to recap: the framing issues of Jesus’ ministry are prophets being arrested by the state, silenced, and killed and akatharto spirits doing damage to God’s children, spirits who, when identified and rebuked, do not leave quietly but act in violent ways, seemingly bent on destruction.
Does this sound at all familiar to anything in our own lives and context? I hope it is not necessary for me to detail the ways that events over the past weeks and months find their resonance in the Gospel narrative—those crying out for justice being manhandled and jailed and those whose hatred, bigotry, and violence is called out reacting with even more vitriol and violence.
Resonance is also found with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in solitary confinement in the Birmingham jail in 1963 when he wrote the letter that inspires this series. And it was only a matter of time before he, like John, was murdered. King knew firsthand what happens when akatharto spirits within the human family are publicly named and consistently called out: there is an ugly outcry and bodily harm done to innocent victims. And yet, Dr. King was resolute and clear. Jesus had called him and he followed. He knew that the time was ripe. His naysayers said the actions were “untimely,” that he should “give the new city administration time to act.” King’s response:
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation…“Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
There may be some members of Foundry who grow weary of this continued conversation. Some likely know it’s important but just want a break from it at church. Some may be wondering why we keep talking about it, or why we are investing so much energy and resources in the work of anti-racism right now. Some may think we’re already good to go on the topic, some may believe there are other, more important things we should focus on, and still others may feel uncomfortable and judged in the conversation. Some of our members of color might be concerned that we’re doing this work right now simply because it is the issue du jour, just another passing “church program” that won’t have any lasting impact or make real change.
But I return to where I began, reminding us that the journey to racial justice at Foundry is not a knee-jerk reaction in this present moment, but has been inching and lurching along since before my arrival and certainly over the past six and a half years. The truth is that we have deep work to do in order to accomplish the catharsis, the purgation, of internal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism in our shared life. Wanting to “take a break” from the conversation is understandable for people of color who may be exhausted with grief and exposure, tired of all talk and no change. And we white people struggle with grief, discomfort, feelings of guilt, tension, and confusion… but let me say, as gently as I can, to my white family members: our siblings of color don’t get to “opt out” or “take a break” from any of this. Can we not, as a sign of solidarity and personal and institutional accountability, stay open and connected both to the conversation and the emerging work even and especially when it is painful and difficult? Can we not bear even that for the sake of justice? For the sake of our beloved siblings?
In 2014 I said, “Racial bias is real and infects our culture like a cancer. It is not a ‘black problem.’ It is a human problem. Racial justice is not a ‘leftist’ or ‘progressive issue.’ It is a Christian issue and an issue of conscience for all people of good will. Racism’s insidious power affects us all.”
And such entrenched, insidious, deadly power and ways of thinking, assuming, and acting will not be vanquished quietly or easily. Clearly. Again… inching… lurching… and yet so far to go… Purging systemic racism is not a matter that will simply magically work itself out over time without any tension or forcing of the issue. In response to one who urged waiting because “the teachings of Christ take time to come to earth,” King wrote:
Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
Rev. Dr. King said this 58 years ago. 58 years. It was the time then. We had the chance then and look at where we are today. This, itself, is a testament to the power of the akatharto spirits of racial prejudice and just how determined they are to steal from us and the whole human family the life together that is possible.
Years of study and conversation and consciousness-raising have brought us to this moment as a congregation. There have been moments all along the way when we might have done and said more, when we could have stepped into the work of racial justice and equity in a more sustained and impactful way. But the good news is that Jesus is calling us today to follow. We can choose this very day to receive the power and freedom Jesus gives us to share in the work of catharsis, of purgation, to cast out the soul-staining, body-breaking powers of white supremacy from our lives, our church, our denomination, our nation. We are called to do the work of sustained, tension-bearing public engagement and personal soul-searching. Now is the time to do something; the year 2021 is the time to do something definitive for our congregation for racial justice and equity—as definitive and concrete as the summer of great discernment around marriage equality. Now is our time and we are called to use the time creatively, to be moved by the power of Jesus at work in and through us to move our lives and institutions “from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” We may be 400 years past time. But the time is always ripe to do right. It’s time.
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