They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. ~ Jeremiah 8:11
My FBC Family:
I continue to hold all of you in my prayers, especially in this gut-wrenching, soul-searching time for our nation.
To my FBC siblings of color: While I wouldn’t presume to know what each of you is feeling right now, I imagine that watching people who look like you be gunned down while jogging, shot while in bed, threatened while bird-watching, and choked to death on a public street by a “peace” officer has been horribly traumatizing. I am grieving with you and for you, even as I grieve for our country.
To my white siblings in Christ: We have work to do. Let us pray for one another as each of us does our own personal, vulnerable work in order to become genuine allies to our black and brown friends and neighbors. This is not the time to turn to our friends of color and ask them to tutor us. Their plates are full. For white people, there are no magic words to gain instant credibility and deep trust. There is only a willingness to wade into the troubled water.
My question for First Baptist Church is this: What is the Spirit inviting in this moment?
I remember reading a story once about a farmer in Nebraska who, for some reason, needed to move his barn about 110 feet. Maybe a highway was coming through—I don’t recall. Some of the farmer’s neighbors approached him with an unusual idea: What if all of us come and pick up your barn together and carry it where you want it to be?
As the story goes, sure enough, a few days later, several hundred friends and neighbors from the community showed up. With a hydraulic jack they lifted the barn just a little off the ground. Then 300 people picked it up and carried it 110 feet and set it down in one piece.
The farmer estimated that each person lifted and carried fifty pounds.
I believe the Spirit is inviting First Baptist Church to ask: In the massive work of dismantling a system built to dehumanize people, what is our 50-pound part?
For starters, some of us might join our friends from Nineteenth Street Baptist Church for weekly prayer and/or for the vigil against racism Friday night (see announcements in this email). In the work against racism, relationships count for a lot.
Listening also matters...especially when we begin by listening for God:
Help Me Listen
by Ted Loder
O Holy One,
I hear and say so many words,
yet yours is the word I need.
Speak now and help me listen;
and, if what I hear is silence,
let it quiet me,
let it disturb me,
let it touch my need,
let it break my pride,
let it shrink my certainties,
let it enlarge my wonder.
~ Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace
With you,
