WIND, FIRE, CHAOS, COMMUNITY, Pentecost, 2020 Acts 2.1-21; Psalm 104.24-35 Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
5 years ago, I attended a vigil at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Capital Hill, the night after a young white man who supported white supremacy, sat in a BS for an hour and then stood up and killed 9 people, all Black, including the lead pastor in Charleston, South Carolina, Mother Emmanuel Methodist Episcopal Church. At the start of the vigil, a deacon got up to welcome us and said, “We were here last night at BS with our pastor. It could have been us.” I’ve never forgotten this line. “It could have been us.”
Every time I see another black man or woman killed, like we witnessed with Mr. George Floyd on Monday night in Minneapolis, Ms. Breonna Taylor in Louisville, or Mr. Aubrey in Georgia 2 months ago, or harassed in Central Park like Christian Cooper, a Black Man who loves to watch birds! I remember the deep and searing reality of this simple statement by a Black Woman Deacon in Seattle, Washington, Summer, 2015. “It could have been us.”
This is the truth, the deep and abiding truth of our country. We live and move and have our being, in white supremacy. The sanctity of life only matters for white people. I heard this from a police officer trainer, a former cop himself, in a news article. “We train police officers to believe in the sanctity of ALL of life—no matter the crime. Until they believe it, brutality will continue.”
We have to sit with this for a long time. Even against our will, we have been indoctrinated into a belief system that begins at the very start of the United States, expands during slavery, with plantation owners, many Christian, who claimed ownership, like I own my car or you own your home—of other human beings. It is America’s Original Sin, one in which we have not yet repented, turned around, and gone the other way. “In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on ALL flesh,” God declares. All those made in the image of God.
This structure of thinking has been sanitized over the last 150 years; we have been taught to individualize the storyline. “Well, he deserved it, he was committing forgery, he resisted arrest.” “He went into that unfinished house. He probably stole something.” “She hung out with people who do drugs. What did she expect?”
We are trained to not see the hierarchy of race in a country whose Declaration of Independence begins “all men are created equal...”. It is a lie. It was written for white men who owned property, including other people. Not women, or people of color or poor people, who own nothing.
I say all this, to get us started thinking more deeply on this Pentecost Sunday of what the wind and fire of pandemic has exposed so clearly. Which may very well be the Holy Spirit. The Same Spirit that comes as volcanic.
Income inequalities; percentage of Black Americans dying from Covid-19 much higher due to structural inequities around housing, food access, health care. Black People are scared to go to the doctor because of the history of horrible treatment toward them. Mass incarceration and our industrial food system have created hotspots of disease, places of work where the primary employees are Hispanic, who live in dorms with bunk beds, get sick and die. But us white folk are given permission to buy the fruit they picked while saying, “I don’t know what to do.”
“And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last years.” , “And so in a real sense our nations’ summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” ―Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., our brother in Christ Just months before he was assassinated... in 1968. 50 years ago.
This rage is rightfully founded. 400 years of brutality, often in the Name of Jesus Christ. These are people who have born the brunt of our racial and economic inequality for so long and when they see the video of Mr Floyd being killed, they say to themselves, “it could have been me. It could be us.’ 25% unemployment, my people are dying, what have I got to lose? I’m next...”. Such a level of despair we can hardly imagine. “And I will show portents in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, Fire & smoky mist...” Acts 2.19
I was downtown from 11-4 yesterday, for two different protests. I went as a pastor and a Christian and a witness to the outrageous treatment of George Floyd and all the others. The first event was at noon, outside Police Headquarters. While tense, it was peaceful, including a march down 4th avenue to Westlake. The second event was advertised as a peaceful protest to include music, pastors, and the brother of a young man killed by Seattle Police in 2016. There were thousands of people, but the Holy Spirit intervened and I discovered Laura, Dale, Michael, Audrey and Linda and Conor and Kaley, and I don’t know how many more of us. We could not get near Westlake Park. Clearly there were agitators looking for a fight with the police and to hyjack the event.
I must tell you us peaceful protestors outnumbered them, but once violence gets started, its like a lit match. Some of the police were rough too - tear gas, mace sprayed right in the faces of people. We left at 3;50. From news reports, it looks like everything really blew up after that.
Righteous Rage is a phrase that comes to mind. We are all so angry at the senseless killing of Black Men and Women. It doesn’t seem to stop! What do we do with this rage? “Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out My Spirit and they shall prophecy.” Acts 2.18
I propose this: Peaceful protests are prayers of lament. (Pause) At the end of the vigil, 5 years ago, all clergy in the room, from any denomination, were invited to come forward to be prayed over. I was in tears—a white woman invading their space; and they graciously prayed over all of us. Then we sang this song, I Need You To Survive. It was the first time I had ever heard it.
It is a song of lament, of truth, of hope. It is our way of calling upon the Name of the Lord today. We want to be saved. We want our country to be saved. In the last days, was written by the prophet Joel, 400 years before Pentecost. We live in those last days: God’s Spirit is poured out on sons, daughters, young men, old men, slaves, men and women, In these days, the Spirit is poured out. It is a cry for justice, for freedom, for mercy, for compassion, for empathy, for understanding.
And along with that? Action, to dismantle scaffolds of white supremacy. In. The Powerful Name of Jesus Christ, do something. We must own our righteous rage and then move it to resolve. Write that letter, go on that march, imagine protests as prayerful laments for justice. make that phone call. Pray for the Spirit to pour over you and then do something. Join a group. Examine your own white privilege that stems directly from White supremacy. Cleanse yourself of racist motifs of thinking; repent of them whenever they arise. Get educated. As one speaker said yesterday, “If you think you are educated, Study more. There is always more to learn.” Join a Black led group like the NAACP. Sit at the feet of people of color and listen, listen deeply to the pain and agony of their lives. Listen carefully until they trust you with their truth.
Don’t let the size of the task defeat you. Be resolved to stay in the ring, as long as God gives you breath. If all of us do our part, the system will break down and we will have a chance to be builders of the breach, binders of the wound, healers of the city. Wind, fire, CHAOS, COMMUNITY. COME QUICKLY Holy Spirit.