Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, March 8, 2020

Just over a week ago, a number of us went across the street to Calvary Baptist Church for what they called “Prayer and a Movie.” The movie was the documentary “Emanuel,” about the murder of 9 people meeting in a prayer group, including their pastor, by a white supremacist. It was a powerful and moving experience. Especially to watch it with our neighbors, in their sanctuary. I am so grateful for that gathering, and for all of you who were able to be there, and for the connections that began that night. I am more hopeful than I was before that night.

The real story of that film is not the killings, and not the history and reality of racism and white supremacy in Charleston and in our nation. No, the film focused on the family members of the victims, and their response to the killings. How some of them were able to forgive the man who took their loved ones away. None of them planned to do this—one woman, whose mother was murdered, said the words of forgiveness came out without her meaning to say them. And says some of her family and friends were upset with her for saying them. But she doesn’t regret those words of forgiveness, because she believes they came from God.

In our conversation afterwards, one of the Calvary members remembered words Jesus said on the cross: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” The conversation that followed gave me a glimpse of how all those years of slavery, of Jim Crow segregation and violence, of separate and unequal treatment, of active and passive racism, how this history has shaped the souls of black folk. In this long experience of suffering, there is a strength that I know little about. 

Rosa Parks said she said down at the front of the bus because her feet were tired. Reflecting on this, Parker Palmer says it was a moment when she decided to stop living a divided life, to stop participating in her own oppression, effectively saying, “You can put me in jail, but I am no longer silently going along with your oppressive system. By saying no to your unjust laws, I am freeing myself from a jail that’s worse than any jail you can put me in.”

I have to believe that those people in Charleston were doing a similar thing—they were making the choice to not be poisoned by the hatred that young white supremacist carried in his heart. Like Congressman John Lewis says about those civil rights days, “You beat me, you arrest me, you take me to jail, you almost kill me, but in spite of that, I’m gonna still love you.”

I was listening to an interview the other day with Ruby Sales, who as a seventeen year-old was part of civil rights protests in Alabama. One day, she and several other activists were confronted by an angry white man with a shotgun, who pointed the gun at Sales. A white seminarian named Jonathan Daniels threw himself between the gunman and Ruby Sales, and Daniels was killed. For months afterwards, Ruby Sales was so traumatized that she didn’t speak. But that moment, and the sacrifice Jonathan Daniels made for her, changed her life. She has used her voice and her spirit to work for justice, healing, and reconciliation. Recently she said words that, when I heard them, I knew I would share them with you:

“There’s a spiritual crisis in white America. It’s a crisis of meaning. We talk a lot about black theologies, but I want a liberating white theology. I want a theology that speaks to Appalachia. I want a theology that begins to deepen people’s understanding about their capacity to live fully human lives and to touch the goodness inside of them, rather than call upon the part of themselves that’s not relational. Because there’s nothing wrong with being European-American. That’s not the problem. It’s how you actualize that history and how you actualize that reality. It’s almost like white people don’t believe that other white people are worthy of being redeemed.”

Those people in Charleston, whose loved ones were murdered in a church, they held on the the belief that this white supremacist killer was worthy of being redeemed. What about us? Do we believe that people who do terrible things are worthy of being redeemed?

In this tradition, we say we affirm the worth and dignity of every person. But do we believe it? Do we live it? And if not, how do we start working on getting there? Because  our world needs all the redemption agents it can get. 

When Ruby Sales says, “I want a liberating white theology,” I want to say back, “We have one. It’s called Universalism.” It’s the belief that God’s love is so big, that no one is beyond it. That we, all of us, are part of a great Mystery, a great Love, that will never let us go. The question is, when are we going to start acting like it?

I know it’s not easy. Neither is is impossible. It just calls us to reach for the better angels of our nature, as President Lincoln put it. It’s in our tradition going all the way back to Jesus, who said,

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children the Holy One, who gives sunlight to both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much” (Matthew 5:43-46).

We have this culture of death in our land. We believe we can achieve peace by producing more weapons. We lock people up and throw away the key. We have this history of people gathering to celebrate capital punishment killings, just the way people used to show up at lynchings. Under our saber-rattling and bluster, ours is a culture of fear and anxiety.

And we also have within us, within each of us, I believe, a longing to be free. A longing for peace and goodness, for connection and reconciliation. In these anxious times, we need to be in touch with those wellsprings of hope and faith. We need to be working on, and working out, a liberating theology for these days. Practicing Universalism. Saying, “I may not like you, or understand you. I may be opposed to what you stand for. But I see you as human, with a heart and soul. As misguided as you may be. I believe you are worthy of being redeemed.”

At the same time, we need to have courage, to be in touch with the truth that ours is not a theology for the faint of heart. My companions, how about we give our hands to the struggle? Both the struggle that’s in here, and the one that out there; let us be mindful of, the distance between where we are and where we long to be. As we heard from Mary Oliver, “Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have.”

Not to be discouraged by that distance, but rather, energized by it, challenged to keep on moving forward, engaging in that long and good work: “Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart.” Here’s what we are about: practicing redemption. For ourselves, and even for those who threaten us. Believing we are all worthy of being redeemed.

I believe this work is essential, these days. And the stakes are high. Listen to a few more words from Ruby Sales. She says, 

“This whole business of demonization, I’ve been deeply concerned about it, because it does not locate the good in people. It gives up on people. And you see that most especially in the right and the left. I have been very concerned about the demonization that comes out of right-wing communities and also the demonization that I’ve heard on the left. And it comes from the same source of displaced whiteness. So I think that there is, at the heart of this business of finding something good in people and not giving up on anyone and not writing anyone’s obituary until they no longer have breath in their bodies…” (Listen to conversation with Ruby Sales here.)

Right now we have breath in our bodies. We have companions for the journey and we have guides to help show us the way. We have this mysterious life in the Spirit—who knows what possibilities lie ahead? May we have hearts strong enough to believe that no one is beyond redemption, and may we have the faith that, whatever may happen, “the Spirit overseeing all, Eternal Love, remains.”

Amen.