Sermon in response to Shootings in Charleston, June 17, 2015

“Living God’s Story” (2 Cor. 6:1-13; 7:2-4)

 June 21, 2015

        Paul pleads with the Corinthian Christians, “Make room in your hearts for us. … I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (7:2, 4).

        In this church, rich Christ followers looked down upon impoverished Christ followers and sometimes flaunted their wealth.  Within this church, there was serious misunderstanding about appropriate sexual ethics for followers of Jesus.  The Corinthians Christians struggled with how spiritual gifts should be exercised worship.  In some cases people with particular gifts were elevate above others even though the gifts were supposed to be from God.  The Corinthian Christians struggled in their understanding of resurrection.  And they did not know how to leave behind paganism and polytheism and give full devotion to Jesus.

        The reason much of the best practical teaching in the New Testament comes from Paul’s letters to Corinth is the believers in that church struggled in so many areas.  Paul was at his wits’ end trying to show these new believers how to live as a community –the body of Christ, the family of God.  Furthering complicating his task were other teachers who came claiming that the Corinthians should ignore Paul.  These others who, according to Paul claimed to be “super-apostles,” made his task of shepherding this complicated group even harder. 

        At times Paul came down quite hard on the Corinthians.  Numerous commentators I have read believe he saw himself as a spiritual father to the Corinthians and the father’s discipline is apparent in both letters.  Yet, he tenaciously holds onto joy. 

Make room in your hearts for us. 

I have great pride in you.

I am overflowing with joy.

Today, churches across America must cling to joy and love and fellowship.  We must cling to who we are in Christ tightly for I fear what is coming.  Recently a 14-year-old African American girl at a pool party was roughed up by a stressed out white police officer.[i]  This was the latest in an unfathomable string of racially-motivated incidents.  I know authorities say it wasn’t about race.  They always say it isn’t about race.  Yet, coincidentally, these stories have a consistent theme; unarmed minority youths are bullied, abused or killed by armed white people, often white law enforcement officers.  The story Texas was the latest until this past Wednesday, June 17. 

On that day, Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC was doing what thousands of churches across America do on Wednesday night.  They were having Wednesday night prayer service.  I have probably been a part of close to 1000 of these services in my life.  It is an activity that is a normal part of church life in many traditions.  In this case, it was a small group, all African American.  And a white man came asking to see the pastor.  This church community did what the church does.  They brought the man in, welcomed him, took him to the pastor, and made him feel like he was a part. 

Clearly he looked different, but when we are in Christ, our differences are signs of God’s beauty.  We celebrate our uniqueness as we join our hearts to one another.  They were doing what churches do.  That’s what really gets me about this story.  The Emmanuel Church was creating safe space for Dylann Roof to seek God.  He sat in that safe space for nearly an hour, and then violated it as he killed 9 people who were welcoming him into their circle.

When we recite the names – Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the rest, and the places – Staten Island, Cleveland, Baltimore, Missouri – and now we add this sad chapter, I fear America is on a collision course with a violent explosion in racial tension.  I believe the worst is coming.  But that does not have to be all that is coming.

We who bear the name ‘Christian’ can to take this time to show what it means to be ‘in Christ.’  We must do this.  We have to go out of our way to hold up a competing narrative to the one that’s ripping across our nation.  We have to stand in the power of the Gospel and say, “There is another story, one in which people, black and white, Asian and Hispanic, male and female celebrate one another and love each other.”  We have to tell that story as the story of racism rages loudly. 

A part of our proclamation of the Gospel is to weep for Clementa Pinckney, Daniel Simmons Sr., Cynthia Hurd, Sharonda Singleton, Myra Thompson, Tywanza Sanders, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Susie Jackson, and Ethel Lance.  These people are brothers and sisters – our brothers and sisters in Christ.  When our family dies, it hurts.  When death comes as the church is being the church, we weep loudly and deeply.  That must be part of our statement of faith.

So too we must commit to being the safe space where all can come and find the love of Jesus.  Make room in your hearts for us, Paul said. I am overflowing with joy.  Even now, even through tears, anticipating days of darker violence, we have joy in Christ. 

I have had the experience the pastor at Emmanuel had.  Someone comes asking for the pastor.  The person appears to have some things very wrong in his life.  When the pastor responds to the unsettled individual, there is no telling what will happen.  That is the point where a voice in my head says, ‘this could get very interesting.’ 

I talked for over an hour to a suicidal man who thankfully finally allowed me to escort him into the hospital emergency room.  I have received bomb threat phone calls.  I testified in a court in trial involving gang-violence.  These personal experiences of mine by extension are the experiences of the church. I, no we, have been through these things.

I have read articles about churches being “soft targets.”  That is kind of the point when I say we need to be safe space.  “Safe” means it is emotionally and spiritually safe in the same way Jesus was a welcoming presence to the most sinful of people.  In his day, the religious institution, represented by temple and synagogue, had become corrupt.  Sinners did not find hope in these places but rather condemnation.  The religious powers that be were not safe for people whose lives were a mess.  They would come broken and ben made to feel worse. 

On the other hand, Jesus was safe for people who had major problems.  People who had really failed in their lives could come to Jesus and receive love and hope, not condemnation.  Thus, Jesus’ church must be safe for lost people including those who are hurting, unstable, unbalanced, and maybe even dangerous. 

Emmanuel Church was Jesus to Dylann Roof, a mass murderer.  They extended his grace.  Paul tells the Corinthians, “We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”  The word “vain” can mean empty.  With all the struggles the Corinthians had, Paul feared they would receive the grace but never live graced lives.  They would continue to live as pagans, to listen to competing preachers who put Paul down, and show no signs that they were filled with the Spirit of God.  They would mouth words of belief in the Gospel but it would make no difference in their lives. 

America is about to explode in racial violence.  I pray the welcome Emmanuel Church gave to Dylann Roof was not in vain.  I pray their hospitality does not come up empty.  I pray the story of churches across America is a story of God’s people standing up to hatred and violence with love, compassion, hospitality, and grace. 

At some point, anger will reach a boiling point in some African Americans.  How could it not?  That anger will bubble over into violence.  Some in white America will respond defensively or judgmentally.  Others in white America will try to insulate themselves from the struggle.  This will especially be the case in more affluent communities.  If the violence, the blowback, and the indifference and isolation become the defining narratives and only stories told and heard, we will have failed as people charged with proclaiming the gospel.  The grace of God we have received and Emmanuel Church showed will be in vain.  Grace comes up empty.  The world is fallen. The stories of violence and hate will play out.  They cannot be the only ones. 

We have a better story to tell.  Paul tells the Corinthians, “now is the acceptable time.  Today is the day of salvation” (6:2).  He doesn’t mean today is the day one decided to entrust his life to Jesus, although that is a starting point.  When Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 that “today is the day,” he means today is the day to live into the salvation we have been given.  How do we do that?

As I discussed these matters with church friends at VBS this past week, one said in response to the Charleston shootings, “I want to do something.”  I understand how she feels. I hope others feel this way.  I suggest reading stories.  Pray until your knees wear out.  Participate in marches and community discussions.  Travel to Charleston and sit in on memorial services.  Go out of your way to develop friendships with people from backgrounds different than your own.  Try to see the world from a perspective that is different that your culture vantage point.  Acknowledge your own prejudices and ask God to help you get those biases out of your life.  Do all these things. 

If you hear this and you don’t have any emotion and you don’t find in yourself any sorrow over what happened, check your heart.  Jesus is weeping at the death of his children.  If we call ourselves Christians, then we weep when He weeps.  We grieve as deeply as He grieves.

Live into salvation.  How?

I want to do something?  What?

We as a community of faith have to tell the alternate story – the grace story.  In the middle of the coming story, we have to be the story of hope.  We do this by opening our doors and ourselves to the lost and hurting people in the world.  Yes, churches are soft targets because broken people need a soft place to land.  Hurting people need to meet Jesus in an atmosphere of love. 

Paul knew the Corinthian Church was full of heartache.  In chapter 6 verses 4-10, he recites all the difficulties he has faced as a servant of Christ.  Yet he said to them, “Our heart is wide open to you” (6:11).  And he begged them, “Make room in your hearts for us” (7:2a).  He risked being wounded again because he hoped he could help the church become the community where people meet Jesus and come to life, a life lived eternally in love and grace.

By being a safe place, a soft target, we risk everything.  Dylann Roof could walk in here.  Or someone without a gun but with a dangerous agenda could attempt to infiltrate our community.  Our commitment to being a people who welcome all leaves us open to such risks.  But we embrace that because God has given us a particular mission.  God calls us to live a story in which people of different backgrounds are brothers and sisters who embrace each other in the love of Jesus.  God calls us to stand in the midst of the violence, throw open our doors, and say to the world, “Come in, you’ll be loved here.  You’ll be valued here.  You have a place here.  In the heart of God, in God’s Kingdom, you have a home.

In coming days, it will become harder for us to tell this story and live this mission.  But we will do it no matter the cost because God enables us as God calls us.  And we will do it with great joy because God’s story is a grace story and a joy story.  The hope for the world is in the telling and living of that story.  Now is the time.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/us/mckinney-texas-pool-party-video/

Joining the March

Joining the March

            A few weeks ago, women who have suffered the worst heartache imaginable – the death of their children got together in Washington DC (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/09/million-moms-march-demands-end-to-police-brutality-and-racial-injustice/27038289/).  These are African-American women whose sons have been killed by the police.  The trend is terrible and obvious – unarmed young black males are killed by law enforcement when the situation could have been deescalated without injury or loss of life.  This is systemic racism. 

            These moms, wrapped in grief, gathered to lean on each other’s shoulder, to cry and pray together, and to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the department of justice (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/million-mom-march-in-dc-draws-hundreds-demanding-police-reforms/2015/05/09/4f5fa952-f501-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html).

            Joining this effort was a first of a kind experience for me.  Part of white privilege is the reality that when you live in the middle class, you have education and a good job, and you have no need to fear how the police will treat you, you can just ignore the systemic racism in America.  You don’t feel it.  So, I have spent time turning a blind eye.  But the increase of violence and the climbing number of unarmed black kids killed by police is something I can no longer avoid.  I never should have in the first place.  I have an adopted son who is black and it horrifies me that I will have to teach him how to act around cops in a way my dad never had to teach me.

            I want my son to know I care.  I thank God that my boy has awakened me to something I should have cared about all along.  I went on May 9, and I marched.  I intend to do more.  And as a pastor, I intend to bring my church along.  But for me, May 9 was to time to add my own feet to the walk and it was a time to observe and learn.  I saw a lot.

            First, I saw what happens when an event is not well organized.  One of my friends who is black and who usually informs me about protest movements did not even know this was happening.  Nor did most of Washington DC know.  If you were not on Pennsylvania Avenue between 4^th and 9^th streets, you would have missed this entirely.  As we walked by the Newseum, I saw far more people on the streets as tourists doing what they might do any Saturday in DC.  That this event was happening and that Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and the rest have died appeared to mean nothing.  People of all races went about their normal lives, mildly inconvenienced by the commotion on Pennsylvania Ave. 

            Second, I looked around the crowd of marchers (a few thousand people, not a million), and I saw a group of people whose lives are in many ways unlike mine.  Obviously I am not a woman, I am not black, I am not the mother of young black men, and my children are all alive.  I lacked shared life experiences with those leading the march. I felt like the outlier in the crowd.  There were people from the Nation of Islam.  I don’t fit that group and they wouldn’t want me.  There was a group of Episcopalian clergy.  I most closely identified with them, but they are DC Episcopalians.  I am a Baptist from North Carolina.  One of the speakers was a woman from the Green Party.

            I have no affiliation with any of these groups.  There were groups holding up banners for the Unitarian Church.  I am neither Unitarian nor Universalist.  There were groups of Lesbians.  I am straight and male.  There were people filtering through the crowd selling Socialist newspapers.  I did not bump into any Southern Evangelicals.

            In a crowd where I was in the extreme minority, I had the opportunity to experience up close how others experience and think about the world.    I did not mind being unlike those around me.  What bothered me is that no one like me cared enough to come.  Where were my peers?  Where are the white, evangelical Christians?  Our cause is Christ and He identifies with the ‘least’ in society.  In the word ‘least’ think least advantaged or least recognized.  The ‘least’ are not lower in value than anyone else, but they have been devalued by those in society who hold power.  Jesus locates himself with those at the bottom of society’s ladder. 

If we evangelicals want to see where God is at work and join Him then we need to go where the hurt is greatest.  Is any hurt greater than losing a child and knowing it is the police who took the child’s life?  This ought to matter to people who do what I do, who live where I live, and whose lives look like mine.  Why did my peers, people like me, completely ignore this event?  That really bothered me and continues to bother me.  Evangelicals want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, but we stop short if it feels different from what we think we know.  That is not good.

            After my observation about the lack of organization and my observation about how most people did not care about this event, a third observation is about myself.  As the crowd marched along, they shouted over and over “I believe that we will win.”  And they chanted other slogans.  I figured out that I am not a stand-in-the-crowd-and-chant type of guy.  I half-heatedly tried to join the chanting, but I found it weird.  I began analyzing the slogan.  Who is “we?”  And what does it mean to “win?”  I found it noisy and unproductive. 

I allow that I could be way off base.  But I just do not see what it accomplished by walking and chanting.  I don’t want to be a voice in the crowd mindlessly repeating a slogan.  My position on this may be critiqued and I invite that.  Here I am simply sharing an observation about my own make-up as a person.

            I learned and observed other things that Saturday, but here I describe a moment in the walk that I think epitomized this particular problem as it exists in America.  The marchers walked to the department of justice at the corner of Pennsylvania and 9^th and began shouting demands for justice.  I supported this.  It is why I walked.

            Across Pennsylvania Avenue and back toward the Capital there was an outdoor ceremony going on.  There were probably as many people involved with it as there were involved with the march.  I think it was a navy retirement ceremony.  A lot of naval officers were there in their dress uniforms and the chairs in rows were filled.  I stepped out of the march and sat on a wall to take it all in. 

I thought, is this happening?  Over one shoulder, sailors were seated in uniform in orderly fashion to honor someone who had given a life of service.  Across the way, another group of people, a riotous crowd, shouted because young men have lost their lives, killed by people in uniform.  Pennsylvania Avenue is wide enough that the two events could happen simultaneously in view of each other without disrupting either. 

            However, after a while, the marchers decided it was time to head back down Pennsylvania to the starting point, John Marshal Place Park at Pennsylvania and 4^th Street.  As wide as Pennsylvania Avenue is it is not wide enough for marchers to walk down the middle of the street yelling without attracting the attention of those on the sidewalks.  One the walk resumed, the retirement ceremony would be affected.  I rejoined the crowd and walked and saw something I could not believe.

            As we walked by the ceremony, a small, gray-haired white woman ran into the crowd of marchers.  She had on a lanyard.  I believe she was one of the organizers of the retirement ceremony.  She started running up to people in crowd who were shouting through bullhorns.  She was shushing them.  She pointed toward the dais where the ceremony was happening and pleaded with the protestors to be quiet.  I have never seen anything so absurd.  These people were protesting because men in uniform had killed their kids.  She was asking them to stop their protesting and quietly respect men in uniform (albeit different uniforms).  A group of angry marchers being chastised and shushed by a little old lady; you cannot make this up.

            As an aside, I want to at least offer a best guess as to the perspective of this woman.  From her point of view, I believe she (and so many I know who share her mindset) loves America.  How does she show this love?  She weeps when she hears the Star - Spangled Banner.  She respects the flag.   And she honors soldiers and sailors, men and women in the armed forces.  I am sure it was an offense to her that these marchers would interrupt something as solemn as a military ceremony.

            But this is the point of disconnect in our country.  That woman cannot connect at a head or heart level to the moms who sons have died in Baltimore, Ferguson, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and other places.  That navy-loving woman thinks she is America, but this crowd of marchers is an America she does not know.  She is completely out of touch with them and does not want to learn.  She does not think this crowd has anything to offer. 

            For their part, those in the crowd are as a distant from her as she is from them.  She cannot understand their pain.  They don’t understand her love of military (which she would call love of country).  Neither group – protestors or the military retirement ceremony – gets the other group.  And neither comes close to representing the majority.  Who are the majority?  It is the crowds of people walking the streets of DC trying to decide if they should visit the Capital or the Lincoln Memorial or if they have time, both. 

            The majority are the tourists and the DC residents who say, “Oh, a navy retirement ceremony.”  And they shrug their shoulders.  “Oh, a protest of some kind.”  And they shrug their shoulders.  The majority of Americans do not want to get their hands dirty or have their lives inconvenienced in the work of fighting for justice and brotherhood and peace. 

            I hope a prophet will arise.  My prayer is someone will stand up, someone who speaks with the power and authority of Moses, of Paul, of Luther, of King.  A lot of people admire Mother Theresa.  Few join her.  Many speak glowingly of Martin Luther King Jr.  Few recognize that he is gone and we need someone who will champion the cause of the marginalized people in society as effectively as he did. 

            The only person I can imagine who might call the world’s attention to the need for justice (and the need for change) is Pope Francis.  I don’t know if he is the prophet God is raising for our day.  I don’t know if God is raising anyone to speak with such authority that people will hear and listen and heed.  I pray that person will arise.  Humanity needs it. 

            For my part, I will preach to the 115 or so people who come to my church each week.  I will announce the gospel and include themes of justice.  I will name society’s evils and call upon the church to pray.  I will continue to march and invite my church to join me.  And I will pray.  I don’t want there to be any more Michael Browns or Freddie Grays.  I pray America will enter a new season, one of uplift, one in which poverty declines dramatically.  I pray this will come about.  I pray God will show me my part in bringing this about.  

Pain

Pain

            I had a periodontal procedure.  #cringealert!! 

The periodontist scraped flesh off the roof of my mouth and then grafted it onto my receding gums.  I had the same procedure in 2007.  That was long enough ago and it worked well enough that I only remembered the success, not the pain.  This past fall, I had procedure, and it didn’t quite work.  So I had to have it again just a little less than two weeks ago.  Let me tell you, right now, the pain is very present.

            I had visions of using this as a season of spiritual discipline.  I knew what I was getting into and I hoped the throbbing on the roof of my mouth would push me deeper into prayer.  That has happened – a little.  I have prayed more lately.  The throbbing has also pushed me to codeine and ibuprofen and lots of it.  

            Philip Yancey and Paul Brand wrote a great book called The Gift of Pain.  Pain is a messenger.  It tells the body something is wrong.  The thing that hurts the lepers Dr. Brand worked with in India was lack of pain or feeling of any kind.  Numbness in their extremities prevented these poor people from realizing their hand was burning in a fire or being gnawed by a rodent or becoming infected from a wound.  Small injuries festered until digits fell off because of a lack of an alert system – pain!

            Our nation has been awakened by one of our “pain-induced alert systems” – the pain of our citizens of color who have been abused and murdered by the police who are supposed to protect and serve.  Ferguson and the backlash; Staten Island and Eric Garner; Cleveland and Tamir Rice; and now Baltimore and Freddie Gray; each case is an instance of societal pain.  Are we in America nearing some kind of tipping point?

            Do whites in America (people like me) feel this pain?  Middle class whites can pretend that these stories are not relevant to them.  But we are all part of the human race.  If a person’s skin color or income or zip code makes him feel immune to this pain and thus renders him indifferent to the situation, he is like that leper who cannot feel his numb fingers as rabid rats chew on them.  The screams of pain from persecuted communities will eventually bring serious hurt to us all. 

            We need to react to the alerts the pain is sending.  We need to pull our hand away from that which bites or burns it.  We need to see that when unarmed people are targeted and killed just because of their skin color, it hurts us all.  We need to link black arm in white arm.  We need to stand shoulder to shoulder, brother to brother, and sister to sister.  We need confront injustice in tangible ways: law enforcement injustice; educational inequality; lack of economic opportunity.  We need to say a resounding no to it all.

            I know how clichéd this all sounds.  I know how easy it is to sit at my keyboard and type.  I know how hard it is to transfer these true but tired bromides from wishful thinking into real action.  I don’t exactly know how to do it.

            So, I am starting with what someone else is doing.  May 9 is the Million Mom March on Washington (http://www.mothersforjusticeunited.org/p/march3.html).  I know I am not a mom, but I ache for those who have lost their children because their children happened to be African American and caught in the path of the wrong policemen.

            There are thousands of good men and women who are officers of the law.  One of my best friends in the world going back to when I was 13 is a law enforcement officer.  I trust him to be fair and honest, and I hurt for all the honest cops whose names and reputations have been tarnished by the actions of a few of their racist, bullying peers.   So many law enforcement officials are heroes who would put their lives on the line to protect the public – everyone in the public.  But, a few bad apples have inflicted enormous pain on America.

            And it is more than a few bad apples.  The bad apples are able to ruin the bunch because our system in America is set up to advantage one group and hold back another.  The strongholds that perpetuate this evil are systemic. 

Systemic racism is also aided by the lazy, cowardly silence from people like me – middle class whites not interested enough to get involved.  But to ignore the problem is to turn my back on Jesus.  When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he numbered himself with the abused and the disenfranchised of society.  Where was Jesus when death visited Freddy?  And Tamir?  And Eric?  And Michael?  And Trayvon?  With nail holes in his hands, he wrapped his arms around them and continues to wrap his arms around their families and the communities afflicted by our 21^st century manifestation of racism.

            I cannot call myself his follower and then now follow.  He stands with the victim.  So too must I.  On May 9^th, I will march because I feel the pain.  I am part of the body and I feel the creeping of the infection – the infection of violent racism.  I cannot ignore the pain nor I can I turn a deaf hear to the wailing of mothers in mourning, nor can I pretend my Lord has not commanded me to step forth.  I must join in.

I pray you will join me.  If you have plans this Saturday, change them.  Come march, and add your voice to chorus singing for justice, equality, and love.  Come, be part of a new declaration.  Be part of the moment when America declared racism would lose its voice in the 21^st century.  

Joy Carriers (Psalm 126)

Sunday, December 14, 2014 – 3^rd Sunday of Advent

          “May our Homes be filled with Dancing.  May our streets be filled with joy.”  Jesus has come, salvation is offered to all who repent and turn to him.  He promises to return and invite all who are his to inhabit the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven as children of God.  Yes, dancing and joy; yes, that sounds right. 

We heard it when Tim and Laura lit the candle and read Isaiah 61:  I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my whole being shall exult in my God.

Mary, the mother of Jesus: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

The Apostle Paul writing to the Thessalonians: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

Our songs, our scriptures, our reading, our ears – we are full of joy and we should be.  It is Jesus’ birthday.  We are reminded that we have been born again in Christ.  At Christmas we celebrate our birthday, our awakening to God, our receiving forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life. 

Psalm 126 offers a beautiful expression of what we have in Christ.  We are who we are because he is who he is.  “Our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy.  May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.  We were like those who dream.”  That last line calls to mind the prophet Joel (Joel 2:28).  You and I will dream.  We will see the Kingdom of God. 

The tension comes when we take our eyes off Christmas and the magic and wonder, the holiness and love, and we look around us. Reading Psalm 126 rubs against the hard edge when we step out of the warm soft light of worship into the biting winds of the world around us. 

We won’t let go joy.  We won’t.  We hold it, proclaim, live in it, and spread it because of Jesus.  However, we do this with eyes wide open.  We do this full of compassion which demands that we have empathy for people whose experience of life is different than our own.  That means we have to be joy carriers.  We have to carry joy to people who are having trouble seeing it right now. 

America has blown up in a 21^st century version of racial strife.  Much of the vitriol is spilled all over Twitter and Facebook.  These media can be pathways where we share the Gospel.  I have participated in redemptive conversations on Facebook. 

However, there is no filter.  So, people can tweet, post, or email extremely insensitive thoughts.  Readers see a message and respond with aggressive words.  Insults are thrown back and forth and what started as a thoughtful even hopeful discourse is, in the end, a hate-stained verbal battle ground. 

Remember the Psalm – our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy.  We won’t let go of joy.  We will spread it.  This is the feel-good seasonal joy that can be reduced to a greeting card (not that I oppose Hallmark, I don’t).  No, we are here talking about the deep joy of Heaven.  That is what we in Christ are called to share. 

Michael Brown’s family is having trouble with laughter.  Their son is dead.   

Eric Garner’s wife is not raising shouts of joy.  Her husband, a black man, died when a white officer used an illegal choke hold to subdue him.  Conservative commentator Bill O’Reily condemned the actions that led to Garner’s death.

The one that gets me is Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old child in Cleveland, Ohio who was shot by police men because he had a BB gun.  My 12-year-old son runs through our neighborhood all the time playing with his friends playing with pretend guns and swords and having fake battles.  Boys love BB guns.  I don’t have to worry about my son being confronted by police – he’s white. 

But my younger son is black.  All my kids are adopted and the younger two are black.  My neighborhood is mostly white we a few Chinese and Koreans also there.  It is educated, middle class America.  Is my neighbor going to call the police because my black son is playing too aggressively?  When my white son plays that way, it is “boys will be boys.”  Why doesn’t my black son get the same space and grace?  If my neighbors call the police and they come and confront my black son for doing what all his white playmates have done all around him all his life, then what happens? 

He’s seven.  He was listening as we had NPR on recently.  He asked my wife “Is it going to be hard for me because I am black?”  She had to be honest and say, “Yes.  It might be.”

This is real.  A few years ago, someone in our neighborhood saw two black boys going door-to-door through neighborhood.  She emailed the neighborhood list serve asking if she should call the police.  They were football players from Chapel Hill high school selling calendars to raise money for the team.  Why didn’t she ask the same question a year before?  She didn’t ask because a year before, the players who went door-to-door were white. 

So just to be clear, parents of black boys have to teach their kids not to play with BB guns – you might get shot.  Parents of black boys have to teach their sons to be careful if you go through a neighborhood because your football team needs money – someone might call the police. 

Our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy.  We cannot let it.  We are of Christ.  We are in Christ.  We know what this season, why joy is the word for it.  Nor can we blithely proclaim joy as if everything is alright.  Everything is not alright.

Much of what I have said is toxic and divisive.  Some white people stand with their black brothers and sisters; other white people decry aspects of black culture they find unappealing.  Some people damn the police – all police.  Others rush to the defense of the police. 

I read an impassioned appreciation shared by the daughter of a law enforcement officer.  I really could feel her heart as she thanked her dad and all officers for his service in protecting the public.  The work the police do is essential in keeping our society safe and ordered.  When you are listening to K-Love or another radio station and the public service announcement comes on calling for thanks and prayer for those in the armed forces, also say a prayer of thanks for police officers and fire fighters.  We need the people who do these tough jobs. 

My only question is this.  Could a black woman offer the same word of appreciation to the police?  Or would her experiences of police pulling her son over to ask why someone like him was driving such a nice car lead her to a different statement?  Does she feel forced to plead with the officials to give her son the same grace and guidance and protection they white boys?  That such a question even warrants asking shows the complexity and difficulty in our culture. 

We have to name it.  We have to insert ourselves into tension and carry the joy of Jesus into it.  As I said, I understand the appreciation for policemen and women I read this week.  That makes sense.  I think I understand that groups of people are fearful of the police.  That also makes sense. 

Many times in recent weeks, reading about Ferguson and Staten Island and grand juries, I have been at a loss for what to say. This morning, with the light of Christmas filling my heart and the even brighter light of Christ illuminating all of life, I know what we have to do.  We have to carry joy to people whose hearts are soaked with tears so that the Holy Spirit can give laughter to those who need it most.  How do we do this?  I have a few thoughts.

First, we listen.  I urge Christ followers to find people whose perspective is different than our own and hear what they have to say.  We listen without judgment and without condition.  Just see the whole picture from their perspective.  Feel their pain.  We listen to them and with them and we do so with compassion and understanding.  You don’t have to agree with everything they say.  Just stand with them and offer compassionate embrace.  It will be uncomfortable, and awkward.  Accept that and go there. 

Second, we pray.  We pray before we listen.  We pray as we listen.  And we pray as we watch.  You turn on the news, find out the grand jury is not going to indict and the rioting and looting starts.  Before we post on Facebook how evil rioting is, we turn our hearts to Heaven and think about with Jesus.  Imagine simply sitting – you and Jesus together – thinking together.  Why does someone see the death of a teenager as an occasion to rob stores?  Because that person, that looter, does not know the joy of Jesus.  He is so lost, his great joy this Christmas will be the TV he stole from a Ferguson store.  You and I want to rant and rave about how stupid looting (and it is).  Is Jesus joining us in our indignation? 

Or do we see this from Jesus’ view?  Yes, Jesus hates sin.  Jesus also weeps when a child dies.  Are we weeping with Him?  Yes, looting is a sign of how broken the world is.  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, another broken place, he wept (Luke 19:41).  Into Jerusalem, into Ferguson, into Cleveland, are we flicking our tongues in disgust or weeping alongside Jesus?  When our hearts are where Jesus is then we are poised to have our tears turned into laughter.  Only when Jesus has done this in us are we ready to carry his joy to another.

Third, seek.  Seek out good stories amidst the not so good.  In Richmond California, the chief of police led the protest march against police abuses of power.  His message to the community was I see with you that something is broken and my intent is to be part of the solution.  It can be wearing to constantly hear stories of more deaths, angry rants, and divisive rhetoric.  It is tempting to turn it all off and stick to schmaltzy Christmas movies. We are in Christ.  We cannot just stick to safe, nice things.  Jesus does not do that.  We have to go where Jesus is.  The media magnifies tragedy because bad news sells.  The media buries positive stories.  But those positives are out there.  We seek the good as we pray for all and listen to those whose perspectives differ from ours.. 

A fourth thought I have is to hold on.  Hold on to joy.  We cannot carry it and share it if we drop it because our hearts are full of other things – anger, irritation, judgment.  Let’s drop those things and hold onto joy.

If we listen, we see the other, whoever the other is – black, Asian, police gay, immigrant – we see the other as human.  Joy comes when human hearts join with each other.  Our differences become beautiful variety and likenesses are signs that we are all made in the image of God and in Christ adopted as children of God. 

If we pray, we submit ourselves to Jesus. We let go of everything.  He sets the agenda.  We have already seen in the scriptures that God fills us with laughter and joy. 

If we seek the good, we are inclined toward the light and without realizing it the light of God shines through us.  We gravitate toward stories of hope and people are pulled along with us. 

If we hold onto joy, we release other thing, negative emotions, hateful words.  We are all of limited capacity.  We can only carry so much.  Let joy be what we carry.

I have not mentioned protest – Christians participating in peaceful demonstrations like ‘die-ins’ and other things like that.  I don’t feel I understand protest movements enough to give thoughtful comment.  But I think if we commit to listening, praying, seeking the good, and holding tightly to joy, we will be equipped to be people of the light of Jesus if participate in protests.  If we choose not to participate, we are at least ready to love those who do.  Jesus calls us to love.

When the Lord restores [our] fortunes, we will be those who dream.

² Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said of us, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

Healing the world is God’s work, which began with the coming of Jesus.  In the age of the church, we bear witness to Him.  In His perfect time, he will return to complete the work of the cross and resurrection.  This is God’s work.  We carry the message of God’s work to those who need it most and we do so with compassion.  Christmas highlights what God’s people are all year – joy carriers.

AMEN