Thy Kingdom Come
The pool of Bethesda, where Jesus healed a man who was waiting for a miracle.
This Sunday my heart was full of anxiety. I am heavy as I have heard the groans and laments of my brothers and sisters, neighbors, and friends of color. My sorrow had only groans to add to those that I love and do life with. So as the rain began to fall here in my neighborhood I grabbed my tennis shoes, quickly laced them up, and set out to walk. As I walked praying and lamenting, searching and seeking for answers, I asked God for wisdom. “How do I, one person, even begin to be an agent of his work of restoration? How can we as a society even begin to scratch the surface of restoring hope to those who have been oppressed for generations? How do we as people of God actionably get involved in the work of racial reconciliation? Lord Jesus let us see beyond our ideology to your heart, to do your work, to love, and serve the oppressed.”
As the rain poured, I walked and prayed. As I prayed I was reminded of the many mission trips I have had the privilege of going on throughout my life. One of the overarching points in training and awareness for the teams that I participated in, was the great physical needs of those we would be ministering to. We’d often hear “growling hungry bellies make it hard to hear about Jesus”. We had to restore them to a place where they could receive. My point is this, as a southern white evangelical I have had to learn that more is needed than my words of how truly satisfying Jesus is. Yes, Jesus is our only hope, but we must first be about the work of restoration so that people can hear. If my child is truly hurting and wounded they can’t hear much of what I am trying to say to make the situation better. They need me to get in there and be present in their hurt, to love them, speak softly to them, hear their pain and not dismiss it. They need me to help restore them before they can hear my words.
So we return to my question. How can I one southern evangelical white woman begin the work of restoration? (I am sharing what I have learned being apart of a “Be the Bridge” group the last few years. I highly recommend the book “Be the Bridge” by Latasha Morrison .)
1) Awareness.
I choose to make myself see what I have not allowed myself to see before. I educate myself on things like white identity, implicit bias, white privilege, white fragility, and how white supremacy is still rampant in plain sight today. I must ask God to examine my heart and reveal to me how all of these things have contorted my views in every aspect of my life. For far too long I have been blinded by my proclamation of color blindness, instead of looking outside myself to see the actual inequities that exist in most, if not every system around me.
2) Educate
It is not my friends of color’s job to educate me on every injustice that they or people they know have experienced. Resources abound. Find books, documentaries, blogs, sermons, podcasts, etc of people sharing their stories and ways to can begin the work of restoration and reconciliation. We cannot ask our friends of color to relive or recount their trauma.
3) Acknowledge and Lament
This requires humility and will look differently for everyone. For me I mourned as I listened to stories of friends and family willing to relive their trauma so that I might learn. I have grieved with friends over their loved ones being gunned down for no reason. I have listened as mothers have told me how they fear for their son’s lives simply if they take a walk or drive a car, and how my brothers feel the need to be constantly aware of how their being perceived merely because of how they dress. This is just the tip of the things that I have lamented. I had to acknowledge my own implicit bias though in this. How I either consciously or sub-consciously have acted while with people of color or as I’ve had someone of color walk toward me in a parking lot or in a store.
4) Confession and Repentance
I must confess the ways in which I have thought and acted. I must own how my implicit or intentional bias has caused harm, either by my silence or by intent. I must repent and change how I have thought and for what I have said or not said. I must ask my brothers and sisters of color for forgiveness as well as my heavenly Father.
5) Restoration
I begin the work of restoration. I continue to pray, listen, educate myself, and love. I stand with and for the oppressed. I raise my voice to heaven and earth against injustice, choose to be an ambassador of peace, and beg God with all that is within me for “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.
A place to start:
The Bible (John 17, Psalm 101, 1 Corinthians 12, Revelation 7, and more)
Read “Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation by Latasha Morrison”
Read “The Gospel & Racial Reconciliation” by Russell D. Moore, Andrew T. Walker, and others.
Podcasts like “On Ramp”, “Truth’s Table”, “1619” and many other.
Continue to learn. Here a few places to get started: code switching, the school to prison pipeline, slavery as it exists in the prison systems, the realities of native Americans today, the realities of how America became such a wealthy prosperous nation on the backs of others, redlining, and more.
Pray continually.
Listen faithfully.
Die to self.
Raise your voice against oppression and stand with and for others.