"Blacks and whites don't worship together, pastor." 88 year old Susan declared to me the day after she had seen Michael in worship. I had invited him after meeting him on the local college campus and striking up a fast friendship. "Don't they have their own churches to go to?" She went on to argue. "Why does he have to come to ours?" The racism and prejudice I had always suspected was there was now out in the open. Susan had grown up in the deep South where segregation was a way of life. She remembered segregated bathrooms, drinking fountains, businesses, and most of all, churches. Those were the "Good Old Days" in her opinion and she was struggling mightily with the way the world had changed.
"I believe white people would set up shop on the front porch of hell if they could make a little money." Thomas, an African-American friend, said in class one day. I was sitting next to him. "What about me?" I asked. "I didn't mean you, of course." He replied. "But I'm white..." Thomas had spent his childhood in Atlanta and had been the victim of racist epithets, been profiled by police as a teenager, and fought against the structural racism that is built into many of the institutions in our country.
"My brother committed suicide because of people like you." Jeff angrily declared, pointing his finger at me. "You conservative Christians want to control everyone's life. You have no business invading anyone's bedroom!" Jeff's brother was gay and he had just found out I held to the traditional biblical view of human sexuality. Even though we never had discussed it up until this point in our friendship, the pain was real.
"I don't feel like you listen to me. You rarely make eye contact. You hear my words but you are not hearing my heart." Danielle was a co-worker of mine at a hospital I worked at before seminary. She felt like every interaction left her feeling diminished as a professional woman. She felt like I didn't take her seriously or consider her counsel or listen well to her advice. Even though I thought we had a good working relationship, the feeling was definitely not mutual.
Over the years, I have learned a great deal from these challenging conversations. First and foremost, I have been exposed to my own privilege as a middle class, white, college-educated, heterosexual male in a culture that is structurally built for me to succeed. I have not had to face the barriers so many others have had to overcome because of race, gender, background, or sexual orientation. It doesn't mean I haven't had my own challenges, they are just different. Not the same. Not morally equivalent.
Second, I have learned to try my best to "live among" my friends and share in their suffering. I am trying hard to see the world through their eyes and the lens of their pain. Everyone I mentioned above is a dear friend though I changed their names for the sake of privacy. Each of them has taught me more than they know about the world we live in. Through their eyes, I have seen injustice. Through their eyes, I have experienced pain. Through their eyes, I have felt profound discouragement. And it is hard because I know I cannot fix it for them. I don't have solutions. There are no easy answers. I can barely even process how this is changing me much less claim any answers for society. So I find myself trying as best I can to sit in the ashes with them - like Job's friends from the Bible - to listen and humbly learn.
The recent election has exposed all kinds of fault lines among my friends. Perhaps the same is true for you. Race. Gender. Sexuality. Religion. The divisions are deep. Visceral. They strike to the heart of all we hold dear. They threaten our most closely-held identities. If feels like society has fractured into millions of little pieces with no hope of ever coming back together. Or, as a very wise Hispanic immigrant friend of mine put it, this election simply exposed the fractures that were already present. One of the biggest things I've learned is that the myth of a unified nation is really a white man's dream more than it is a black or brown man's experience. It is a male's dream more than it is a female's experience. It is a heterosexual man's dream more than it is an LGBTQ person's experience. It is a Christian man's dream more than it is a Muslim man's experience. And in the wake of the shattering of such national myths, I find myself crying out with the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, "Is there no balm in Gilead? No physician there? Why is there no healing for the wound of my people?" (Jeremiah 8:22)
In this series of blog posts, I have suggested a few ways to perhaps begin a healing process. (These spiritual practices are adapted from a book by Hugh Halter titled, Tangible Kingdom.) First, I think it involves courageously leaving our homogeneous groups to engage with those who are different than us. Second, I think it involves actively listening to one another rather than being so quick to judge and dismiss. Third, I think it involves having the humility to live among and with those who differ from us in order to learn from their experience and wisdom.
Now just to be clear, I believe this is a task everyone must engage in...not just those from my tribe. If we are to make progress then we must all come with open hands and hearts, assume a posture of humility and grace, and be willing to initiate and take the first step. At the same time, I do believe it is incumbent on me as one who comes from a place of privilege to intentionally submit myself to my friends who have experienced tremendous pain and hardship and suffering. To listen long and well and hard to often harsh words before I speak. To intentionally humble myself before them and relinquish any power and control I may have. In this way, I believe I follow the path of Jesus who "being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be held onto but made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant." (Phil. 2:6-7)
This does not mean I must surrender my convictions. If authentic reconciliation is to occur. If complete healing is to be found. It will be true for both the oppressed and the oppressor. The powerless and the powerful. The victim and the perpetrator. This is the heart of the gospel that I have committed my life to and it is the culture of the Kingdom of God that Jesus embodied and taught.
I am grateful I continued to go back to Susan's home to listen to her life experience. To seek to understand before I sought to be understood. Over the next six months as we studied Scripture together and prayed together, God changed her heart. She embraced Michael almost as a son and when he left for seminary, she became one of his financial and prayer supporters. And, a few months later, when Sam and Monique (also African-American) began attending, she welcomed them with joy.
I am grateful for my conversations with Thomas. He is one of the most brilliant and articulate people I have ever known. As I sat at his feet and listened to him share, he not only gave me the blessing of his friendship and the wisdom of his experience but exerted a profound influence on me. Through Thomas, God ignited in me a passion for racial reconciliation and I am blessed by the deep friendships I have forged with my non-white brothers and sisters over the years.
I am grateful for my friendship with Jeff and the ways he has helped me understand the struggles of the LGBTQ community. It is real. It is deep. It is visceral. Although I can't imagine how it must feel to struggle on an ontological level with one's identity, I am learning and growing from my relationship with him. At the same time, he has shared with me how he is growing from his relationship with me. He has learned to respect my convictions and understands they do not come from a place of hate or anger or malice of any kind.
I am grateful for my former colleague Danielle. Her boldness in confronting me helped bring to light behaviors and attitudes in my life that needed to change. Her willingness to risk our working relationship taught me much and I am thankful that before I left that job, she offered words of affirmation and encouragement that demonstrated how much I had grown.
Life has a way of circling back however and I still find myself repeating the mistakes of my past. Needing to have hard conversations with those I love. Needing to listen more than speak. Learn more than teach. Humble myself again and again. This is why intentionally cultivating deep friendships with people who represent a diversity of backgrounds and beliefs is essential. "Living among" those who are different is the key to understanding the depth and breadth of the Kingdom God will one day bring on this earth. And it is only as our nation aligns it's heart with God's heart that we will find the healing we so desire.