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by The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal
June/July 08
When the day of Pentecost arrived (Acts 2:1ff), people from different countries who spoke different languages and whose skin was of many hues all heard the witness of the apostles in their own native language. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
As we begin the season of Pentecost and enter into “ordinary time,” in 2008 we recognize that there is nothing ordinary about this time. That’s why the leaders of the United Church of Christ have called us to enter into a Sacred Conversation on Race. And like those first disciples who gathered 2000 years ago, we have all heard some extraordinary things. Topics reserved for private conversation, whether in barber shops, bars, private clubs, or locker rooms, are now being discussed in the public square. And many of us are engaging in conversation with people whose color or political persuasion or social habits may be different from our own.
Though fraught with possibility, these conversations have also been both painful and purgative. Many of us continue to echo the question raised on that first Pentecost experience, “What does this mean?”
Entering into sacred conversation means we have to look honestly at our history. In the black-majority high school my children attended, they learned what the highest-ranking black official in the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said in an interview in The Washington Times. “Black Americans were a founding population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together – Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That’s not a very pretty reality of our founding....
That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.” And I would add that this and countless related facts makes it essential for us to engage it.
Entering into sacred conversation means we have to look honestly at how so many of us live our daily lives, surrounded by people who look, talk, and often think like we do. Just as Jesus embraced the widest possible range of people, we can too. But doing this requires us to be intentional. While many congregations have little chance of becoming multi-racial or multi-cultural, every congregation can offer members the support and encouragement they need to widen their horizon by making friends with people whose race, class and/or ethnic orientation is different from their own.
Entering into sacred conversation means refusing to have our conscience determined by the media. I grew up thinking that the role of the media was to provide objective access to a world beyond my knowing. I look back at that view as laughable. Over the past many months, one presidential candidate has been relentlessly pummeled with the same questions about 30 seconds of his pastor’s 211,000 minutes of preaching. Everyone in America knows this. Yet until recently, virtually no one in America knew that another presidential candidate successfully sought and secured the endorsement of another pastor – a war-mongering, Catholic-bashing preacher who said that the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins[1]. It was this pastor’s apology to Catholics on May 13, 2008, that prompted media attention, rather than the candidate’s solicitation of his endorsement before the apology.
Similarly, when the leader of the Religious Right, the Rev. Francis Schaeffer, denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with three US presidents [2].
We cannot rely on the media to help us understand matters of race. “Sacred” conversation is never mediated. It must take place directly between people who regard each other as a child of God.
Embraced by the presence of the Pentecost Spirit as it brings together diverse people from every corner of the earth, let us do all in our power to listen to the pain, the struggle and the aspirations and hopes of people we can learn from and grow with – people with whom we share both a future and a faith.
[1] Bill Moyers Journal, 5/2/2008
[2] Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Schaeffer, in his blog posted on The Huffington Post, 3/16/2008