This past week, I was party to a conversation with a relative that turned to the Black Lives Matter protests. This relative, an older person, commented, “I don’t understand where all this is coming from.”
Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, I was flabbergasted. For so many reasons. Having just the week before sat through the agonizing reading of 200 names of Black people killed by police, I couldn’t imagine the level of privilege and living in a bubble that must characterize this person’s experience if they don’t get why people of color and allies are terribly, terribly angry.
But that is exactly what privilege means: being insulated by our gender, or skin color, or other advantage, from the grim realities that other people have to live with day in and day out. Let me give you an example. This question is for the women in the room. Please raise your hand if you have ever been in a meeting and been interrupted by a man, talked over by a man, or had something explained to you by a man that should have been obvious that you already knew.
Lot of hands up. Including mine, many times over.
This kind of unthinking sexism – and it comes out in situations where race is a factor also – is referred to collectively as “microaggressions.” Men, even good men who are trying to lift up women, have a default setting from how we were all raised in our society, that their voices are the most important and authoritative. And it takes a lot of practice and checking themselves not to unconsciously enforce patriarchal understandings of the relative importance of men and women. And those are just small matters, but they happen so often, so pervasively, that they are kindling on a fire that includes discrimination, harassment, sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, and murder. And a lot of women are damn mad right now – and were especially after Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court – just like a lot of people of color are damn mad right now, and for a lot of the same reasons.
The absolutely blatant murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis a month ago was the spark that lit a very large pile of very dry wood.
Our gospel lesson for today is the last portion of Jesus’s words of instruction as he sends out the disciples two by two. And the words from this instruction are mighty puzzling, especially in light of the fact that the Brethren have for more than 300 years acclaimed Jesus as the Prince of Peace and asserted that all war is sin.
And then we hear Jesus saying that he hasn’t come to bring peace, but a sword. What do we do with that?
Considered in its context, these words to the disciples seem to be a warning that the preaching, teaching, and healing that the disciples are being sent out to do might not all be received with a smile and a word of thanks. That what the disciples have to say and do might be troubling to some folks, might even stir up a hornet’s nest – and especially between generations. Man against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
Older people, those old enough to have grown children, tend to be somewhat more conservative than younger people. Even if their politics and theology are progressive, older folks often feel like they’ve had their adventures and struggles and would like for their lives, and the life of the world if possible, to proceed a little more quietly. Even if they agree with the goals of the newest movement for peace and justice, they might be critical of the means, especially if it seems to be stirring things up that they feel maybe shouldn’t be stirred up.
I think that’s part of what the disciples had been sent out to do. Stir things up. Because they were being sent out as part of God’s Kingdom Movement, God’s Shalom Movement, to a people that were living in a land occupied by a brutal and powerful empire. And some of their hearers would be younger folks who would see the connection between the message of the worth and dignity of every human person and the brutal Roman occupation, and be inspired to resist the Romans in new and creative ways. And some of their hearers might be older folks who had made their peace with living in an occupied land and did not want the Romans cracking down, which they knew from experience is exactly what would happen.
Sound familiar? This phenomenon is so familiar, even in communities of color, that there are names, in the Black community, for folks who don’t want people, including their own children, stirring things up. You’ll find one of these names in the title of the famous abolitionist novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another in the Autobiography of Malcolm X. These names sting, and they’re meant to. Because not wanting to stir things up looks and feels an awful lot like being complicit with injustice.
Let me give you another example. Sometimes stirring the pot means lifting up even private injustice in a way that can be discomfiting to those who have made their peace with it. Have any of you read the novel My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok? It’s a wonderful, gripping story. Asher Lev grows up in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, and it becomes increasingly clear that he is called and gifted to be an artist. And his family and community – tentatively at first, but more warmly as his talent develops – are encouraging of this.
After a number of years as a working artist, Asher Lev lands a show at a major gallery. And the night of the reception, his parents and many of the Hasids of his community show up to cheer him on. To be proud of their neighborhood son. And when they see the final piece in Asher Lev’s show, in the last gallery space, the entire Hasidic community, including Asher’s parents, walks out, never to speak to Asher again.
What he has painted is his mother. Standing in the kitchen, looking out the window, waiting for his father to come home, as Asher witnessed her doing night after night all the years of his young life. But he has painted her, standing at the kitchen window, crucified on a cross as Jesus was. And this the Hasidic Jews of Brooklyn, including Asher’s parents, cannot tolerate. Not just because the artist has connected his childhood home life with the central brutal story of the Christian faith, but because he has named and laid bare the sexism and misogyny at the heart of his childhood home.
We don’t like to see such things. We don’t like to hear about them. We don’t like to talk about them. And when Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, he knew they’d encounter people who didn’t want to hear it – not if it could mean greater brutality on the part of the Romans, which it absolutely could.
I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that the Romans utterly destroyed the Jewish community in Jerusalem within 40 years of the start of the Jesus movement. When the marginalized assert their worth and dignity in the face of oppression, the oppressors tend to crack down hard. And so there is some wisdom in the approach of those folks who would prefer not to have things stirred up, to keep the peace.
But is it really peace?
If I have something important to share in a meeting, and the men in the meeting keep talking over me, and I finally give up and shut up, you might say that the meeting was a peaceful one. But it wasn’t. Violence was done in the silencing of one of the group members, violence that leads to resentment and anger, and rightly so. Peace doesn’t mean expecting the marginalized to just quietly swallow every insult and injustice. Genuine peace means righting the wrongs so that every voice IS heard. Every person is fed, every life is honored.
And sometimes that means focusing on lifting up people who have been marginalized and trampled on in a way that doesn’t feel fair to those of us who haven’t. Closing the gaps of advantage between white people and people of color, men and women, straight people and LGBTQIA people, sometimes looks like giving the marginalized people extra helpings when the others at the table only get one.
Because it is. And those of us who were born with advantages need to learn to be ok with that – even to champion it – because often it’s the only way to make things right.
Have any of you seen the movie or read the book The Hunger Games? The backstory is one of a society where the marginalized, at some point in the past, rose up against their oppressors. But they failed, and the oppressor class has developed a brutal annual ritual to remind the losers of their secondary status. Each of the thirteen districts of the nation every year has to select by lot, one male and one female teenager to compete in a battle to the death. The winner is the last teenager left alive.
From the time the young people in this society turn 13 until they are 20, their names are placed in the drum as potential candidates for each year’s “hunger games.” But because the people are poor and short of food, teens can also earn additional rations for their families by allowing their names to go into the pot additional times. The heroine of the story, Katniss Everdeen, has a male friend named Gale whose name is in the pot this year 57 times.
And when the girl’s name for District 12 is pulled out of the pot and read, Katniss is horrified. It’s her beloved little sister Primrose, who just turned 13. Without giving it a second thought, Katniss steps forward, raises her hand high, and says loudly, “I volunteer as tribute.”
Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place. Even if she dies in the attempt, her sister’s life will be preserved.
I think that those of us who are serious about dismantling racism, and sexism, and homophobia, need to put our money where our mouths are and be willing to volunteer as tributes.
What does that look like? Well, the United States doesn’t have a hunger games ritual – yet – but there are so many ways in which marginalized people are taken less seriously than white people. Volunteering as tribute might mean digging more deeply into our pocketbooks to support Black Lives Matter or other organizations that are trying to help. It might mean direct assistance to people of color who are struggling, as our church has been doing for Robin in Jacksonville.
It might mean things like going to the doctor with a Black friend who has a serious health condition to help ensure that the doctor listens to her concerns. This is not as farfetched as you might think. The great tennis player Serena Williams almost died giving birth because the attending doctors would not listen to her trying to draw attention to a serious health condition that complicated her blood loss. And if Serena Williams has that kind of trouble seeing a doctor while Black, you know that many other Black people do, as well.
It might mean going with a Black friend to apply for a loan – not just serving as a reference and waiting to be called, but physically showing up and standing up for and with them. It might mean going with a person of color who has been arrested or subpoenaed and making sure that the judicial system treats them fairly.
It might mean something like participating in the Death Row Support Project, a Brethren ministry coordinated by Rachel Gross, whom some of you know. Prisoners who get mail are often treated better than prisoners who don’t, because the guards know that someone on the outside cares about them.
It might just mean having someone’s back when they choose to stand up and speak out about unjust treatment. My friend Polly was adopted from Thailand when she was eight years old, and she has some learning disabilities. She is currently going to school in a special program at Bellevue College in western Washington, and she’s encountered some racism on the part of her classmates there. A couple of weeks ago, Polly decided that she felt called to speak out on social media about Black Lives Matter, and she asked me to take a look at what she’d written before she posted it. I
said it was good, but I thought it would be more impactful if she told some of her own story, what it was like to be on the receiving end of racism. So she revised her post, and I told her it was terrific. And I also told her that I would make sure I was getting notifications every time someone commented on her post, and if someone said something out of line, they would have to answer to me. She said she appreciated me having her back.
It was no big deal, really, although it does give me some anxiety to speak out on social media knowing that what I have to say might draw some fire. But I was willing to take that fire on Polly’s behalf – she had dealt with more racist BS, while only in her 20s, than I will ever face personally in my entire lifetime. I’m not looking for applause here. Just sharing one way that I found, to volunteer as tribute.
And Jesus tells his disciples they’ll find people like that, too. People who are willing to support their risky work, even by just offering them a cup of cold water to quench their thirst after walking down a dry dusty road in the desert sun. How can you offer that cup of cold water to people struggling for justice? We’re not all called or even able to be on the front lines, but every single one of us can support the effort somehow. Not least of which with our prayers, which my grandmother often reminds me is the least, and the greatest, thing that we can do for one another.
There’s a quote from Tom Robbins, author of many wonderful off-the-wall novels like Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Skinny Legs and All, and Jitterbug Perfume, that I think shines a fierce and helpful light on what it means to volunteer as tribute on behalf of the marginalized:
“You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one’s life. So you lose it, you go to your hero’s heaven and everything is milk and honey ’til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That’s not courage. Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one’s clichés.”
Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to risk their clichés. To volunteer as tribute. To cut through the lies that the Romans had told the occupied Judean peoples about their dignity and worth. And the Spirit of God called others whom the disciples met, to support their mission and offer them a cup of cold water – not the room-temperature water in the pitcher, but cold water from the well.
Bobbi Dykema is currently serving as pastor at First Church of the Brethren in Springfield, Illinois. She is also on the pastoral team of the Living Stream online Church of the Brethren and serves on the steering committee of the Womaen’s Caucus. Bobbi is passionate about racial and gender justice, beauty and the arts, and reading scripture as a living document.
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