A Faith That Gives Rise to Hope
Choosing Sides
“Suffering naturally gives rise to doubt. How can one
believe in God in the face of such horrendous suffering as slavery,
segregation, and the lynching tree? Under these circumstances, doubt is not a
denial but an integral part of faith. It keeps faith from being sure of itself.
But doubt does not have the final word. The final word is faith giving rise to
hope.”
Life in the present moment feels a little unsure, less
certain and scarier than ever before. Maybe recent events were not a surprise
to some and more in line with historical events than we'll ever talk about, but
there is much damage done. The wound that Charleston has left feels too open,
too gaping and too big to try to fill with words. With all that has been going
on in our country and the world, all the attacks on black bodies and black
people, words seem like a luxury. Action or numbness seems like a better use of
time. But here I sit writing, offering my musings and thoughts into the public
discourse on what it means to be a contradiction and praying that my honesty
may help others make sense of it all. It is what my faith is calling me to do.
I am a contradiction: I am black, I am woman, I am a
community organizer, I am a lover of black people, I am poet, and I am also a
Christian, a Lutheran to be more exact.
Lately my Christianity has felt as heavy as my blackness, a
weight I can’t take off and yet don’t actually want to carry or know what to do
with. Everywhere I go and even on my social media, I see the cross between two
groups of people. The politically conscious people of color who may or may not
connect to organized religion have lots of analysis and lots of fire about the
way the world is operating. They post things about Christians (black ones in
particular) being backwards and subscribing to their own oppression, and that
hurts. My social media is also filled with church friends who love Jesus and
post scripture regularly. They try to live out their values through love and
often see the world through a more passive lens. Both of these points of view
are incomplete and leave no space for someone like me to exist.
Being a young community organizer who loves my community and
bends toward justice with my radical political views, I rarely tell people I am
a church geek. I love black liberation theology and I listen to Luke Powery
lectures at night like lullabies. I enjoy spirited conversations about God and
People and life and love and what it all means. I am both.
Most would say that being both and having both within makes
me Lutheran. It was the language of being both “saint and sinner” that
attracted me to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). This
language and the community of Luther Place Memorial Church, where I am a member
in Washington DC have supported me as I have grieved the loss of black lives and given me the space to develop my own leadership and theology. But
today I want to pick a side. I don’t want to exist in the both/and tension.
Charleston has made me feel like this perpetual tension,
this desire to see things from every side - while great theoretically - is
almost impossible; especially in a world where violence is pervasive and racism
undergirds the fabric of the way we operate as a nation.
A young man walks into a church, sits and fellowships,
participates and is welcomed in a way that I imagine Jesus teaches us to
welcome the stranger. Then, he attacks. He launches into hateful rhetoric, that
while we pretend is offensive, we have all heard. It is the same hateful speech
that causes us to laugh at the expense of another culture; to be so concerned
with protecting our own way of life and church tradition that we won't even
recognize the humanness of other people.
The shooter claims the same church I belong too and that
hurts because it’s not about him. It’s about the victims and families and it's
about the way our country believes and operates as if black lives mean less and
that refuses to see that racism and gun violence are linked. It is about a
narrative of race that promotes white geniality and purity, white intention
over impact, white purity and guiltlessness as the most important values. And
again, I was reminded that I live in two worlds, the black one of my work and
upbringing and the white one I choose to engage by my participation in the
ELCA. The one of organizers and activist and secular folks who go to political
analysis before they feel anything and those of believers who allow their
feeling and theology to paralyze them.
Today I have decided to leave the tension of the both/and.
Today, my side is picked. It is the side that calls us to confront the ways in
which racism has distorted our world both at a macro level and individually, in
the ways in which we see each other, It is the side that requires us to
confront what it truly means to stand for justice and not just use the language
of faith to let us off the hook. It is the side that demands us to see the
humanity of all and to intentionally choose to prioritize those most
marginalized. It is the side that leads us to boldly declare #blacklivesmatter
because until we understand that we will just be clanging symbols. It is the
side that pleads us to stop shoving our anger into appropriate boxes and is bold
enough to be hurt and vulnerable. It is the side that says love is great but
love is not enough to heal the choices we have made as a nation.
And yet there is still hope. There is comfort in knowing
that our lives are more than the collection of accolades and events. That our
lives can spark awareness and action and movement. There is hope knowing I am
part of a people who have always been resilient and claimed their humanity,
even when society wouldn’t recognize it. I am part of a people who God loves, a
people who have always emerged from the ashes scarred but not broken. It is
that legacy that allows me to believe that doubt and (anger and pain and rage
and hurt) keep our faith from being sure of it like James Cone says.
2 Corinthians 12:9 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to
take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for
my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more
gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
The weariness that people feel may be the fuel for new
paradigms and new worlds to be created.
