Evolving Faith: To be Honest And Tell the truth
“Who told you that you had to fit,” were the words that stirred my soul and peaked my interest to a new posture at the recent Evolving Faith conference.
Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, a clinical psychologist, public theologian, and minister located in Atlanta, delivered the nourishment that this forest wanderer needed to chew, swallow, and rest in. What Dr. Barnes provided during her session was powerfully prophetic and grace filled. What she did for me personally was give me the permission I didn’t need, but desperately needed to hear – “you can be different.”
“Little bits of me were getting shaved off while I was trying to fit in,” she shared of attempting to fit a hexagon into a round hole. “I began to wonder what would it look like if I embraced myself and stopped being involved with communities that came with prerequisites?” – Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
It’s a question I toil over every day in seminary. It seems ever present to me and my anxiety that countless humans around me have their denominational loyalties, know whom will ordain, and can’t wait to jump into their ministry roles.
As a queer, non-binary, compacted trauma informed and experienced human – this above statement is not my life. Where is God in that?
Dr. Barnes, graciously and vulnerably, walked 2,500+ gathered through her church wilderness filled with congregation after congregation, baptism covenant redefinitions, and break ups of taxing toxic environments to her present space holding.
“I needed space away … my family and I would sit and talk church instead of going and not once was God not with with us. I no longer need to package that experience for me – I was experiencing the divine how I wanted.” – Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
“Being fit-less doesn’t mean being alone,” was the moment where I collapsed into my spine and relinquished an audible sigh.
Being fit-less means I’m tethered to the new reformation.
That new reformation begins in unmasking the unknown, the truth we’ve accepted without questioning, and grief of the latter.
Evolving Faith was full of grief in a variety of forms.
Curators, Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, were unashamed and unapologetically grieving the loss of friend and colleague Rachel Held Evans. And alongside their public truth telling of “we will not pretend we are utterly heartbroken,” the 2,500+ mainly white wilderness congregation groaned with them.
Mass grief, after all, was my main reason for attending Evolving Faith. My trip’s core purpose was to participate in a communal grieving experience. What does mass grief look like? The answer for Evolving Faith was filled with bright sadness.
On the conclusion of day one, this misfit wilderness congregation met for a lament and grief service. The Rev. Dr. Jenny Morgan of Highlands Church North Denver led the service instructing participants to clinch a tiny pebble in the palm of their hand just enough to feel the pain of their grief; to note its existence. Holding our pebbles – tight or loosely – liturgy was read, song was played, and as the last note ended the rain began.
Pebbles trickled from the top bleachers of our hockey arena church to the floor. Pebble after pebble, the room’s energy shifted from tense weightiness to a mass memoriam of the grief that laid presently in front of our beings. Tears, sighs, and wide eyes remained post rain.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR PEBBLES LAY COLLECTIVELY ON THE GROUND? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE CAN ALL SEE OUR HARM? OUR OPEN WOUNDS? OUR HONEST NATURE? OUR SHAVED OFF EDGES? THE LIES WE HAVE TOLD?
Looking at these pebbles collected, I began to think about the systemic trauma held in the room. We were, after all, a collective majority of 2,500+ white humans and speakers represented across several classes, race, sex & gender. Within this hockey arena, all spectrums of oppressor to the oppressed existed. And together all were wrestling with the pebbles of truth amongst them.
It was alarming and equally unsurprising at the remarkable sea of whiteness that surrounded me at Evolving Faith. After all, we were in Denver and in my own privilege I was able to front the $1,000+ cost to be present. I remember exchanging tweets with a friend of color who tweeted toward Evolving Faith about not receiving word on scholarships. I told them I would tell the truth in what my experience as a white queer Christian was like and also tell the truth on the representation and weight carried by the speakers of color.
This is me telling the truth.
Most of the participants at Evolving Faith were progressive Christians having recently left their evangelical backgrounds and in search of healing. They too were fit-less, as Dr. Barnes stated, and searching for belonging.
What I found and witnessed was the majority voice of our Christian context flailing and unsure of how to handle people of color naming White Supremacy, the murdering of black and brown people, and speakers of color presenting grace and truth telling fire.
On day two during a Decolonization, Soul Care, and Justice talk, Dr. Barnes shared with a white woman who asked, “forgive me, I’m new to this – help me” that “it isn’t a sin that you’re white.”
Alicia Crosby, a Chicago-based justice educator, activist, and minister, shared during this same talk the “desire in whiteness to have things wrapped up nice & neat – y’all got to resist that shit. Don’t rush past, dwell, deal.”
Whiteness is nice and neat, y’all. As a white person, I know where I fit societally. I know the privilege I hold in my whiteness. I know the hierarchy of my whiteness and how I can and have abused this fact to remain secure. And in that I must continue to do the work to sit in that acknowledgment, to dwell on my task to unmask & unravel, and deal. And even though I inherently know this to be true, I did so much self-work, reading, and listening to be more aware of my whiteness. I will do this wrestling and unraveling for the rest of my life – imperfectly and at times utterly messy – but I am committed.
My queerness marginalization does not and will never equal understanding the oppression of black and brown bodies. What I can do is educate myself on my privilege and then use it to create an equitable environment for all. This is the same ask of humans who want to engage me about how to be a better queer ally:
Learn your privilege. Name your privilege. Share your platforms. Unravel the narrative. Repeat.
An uncomfortableness set in during this second session, as I listened to white person after white person ask questions like “explain this to me, “I’m white.” I cringed and watched speakers hold such brave space.
At one point I tweeted:
This unraveling that was taking place for those gathered is needed and I’m not suggesting that all white people are ignorant or insensitive. I’m stating that if this is the representation of the emerging mainline christian context, we have work to do.
White people cannot rely on the backs of those against the wall, as Howard Thurman would suggest, to lift us out of our fragility of our reckoning with what is true about our post-assumptive world. That is our own liberating work of what White Supremacy does to the narrative of our being and others.
This work is something we must task ourselves with reading voices outside of our context, supporting black and brown people in the pulpit, in politics, and in general.
As William Matthews, artist and activist shared, during his talk, “If y’all had listened to Black Christians in 2016 perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are right now?“
What if we listened?
When we lose our belonging, I think, it becomes easy to look past injustice to find our safety. After all it’s systematically ingrained in us to find people who look like you, as opposed to opening up a wider more diverse table. Are we hearing all the stories? We must do as Alicia Crosby suggests – don’t rush past for safety – sit, dwell, and deal.
Evolving Faith offers space for the wilderness wanderers in a beautiful way and I believe so many humans were blessed by all the speakers present. But I wonder how many noticed the demographic and stopped to ask why? I wonder how many people had visceral reactions to the evangelical hints of space making? I wonder how many had questions like I did? I wonder now what my role is here back in my home of Atlanta. Because I am equally far from doing enough.
What I valued most was Jeff Chu’s truth telling on the close of day two during his session.
He acknowledged that for many hearing the truth spoken by Evolving Faith’s brown and black speakers was uncomfortable and pushed back against. For him, he was grateful for such brave sharing and call to holy justice. And, I agree – it is holy justice.
“We’re so glad you’re on a journey of reconstruction, but your reconstruction is not just for you. Reconstruction is only worth while if it fits in God’s given picture of all creation.” – Jeff Chu
May the holy call of observing the pebbles collected of shattered truth, fractured faith, and injustice still be resonating with those that gathered for this year’s Evolving Faith. “May we be honest and tell the truth,” as Rachel Held Evans practiced.
READING RESOURCES
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity In A World Made For Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race
It is to be noted that Evolving Faith hosted a POC room and had an LGBTQ+ lunch on the main event floor.
**It is also to be noted that Jen Hatmaker gave a powerful session on discerning good fruit. She named whiteness, her lack of support of LGBTQ+ humans, a verbal apology, and named narratives that must be shifted. Here are some quotes from that session:
“White people have a place in the kingdom of God but that place is not at the center….We adhered to doctrines that broke peoples hearts and bodies. We said our bad theology wasn’t the cause of your pain, just your human error…. When white, mostly-male, straight, married, able-bodied people with a certain threshold of power and money are at the center of the narrative, we will never be able to identify good fruit.”
I choose not to share this within the context of my post because I wanted to center the conversation around the black and brown speakers who spoke during Evolving Faith.
I am immensely grateful for the daring and brave work of every voice who participated in Evolving Faith.
Why did I attended:
I journeyed to Denver to experience mass grief & lament and to be an observer. What I left with was a call to be more aware of my role in justice work within my whiteness. And, immense gratitude for the black & brown speakers who held such brave space to a majority 2,500 white crowd.
I attended this conference to participate in this grief, as a human who was impacted by Rachel Held Evans work. And because of my personal work in holding belief & healing. I chose this conference for my Introduction to Practical Theology class. Writing this reflection piece was incredibly difficult. I am not an expert. I do not have whiteness figured out. I do not have grief or healing mastered. What I’m doing in this piece is being honest and telling the truth.
I am grateful for the space Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu cultivated alongside Rachel. I’m beyond grateful to all the voices whom spoke at Evolving Faith. And I am hopeful for what it stirred, healed, and brought to all gathered.
Advent: Holding the weight of waiting
Originally posted DECEMBER 2, 2019
Recently a therapist shared with me that their practice is holding space for humans living in a dying world. They said, “Humans are hurting constantly.” A hurt so deep and constant, I suggest, it might provoke thoughts of impatience, lostness, isolation, abandonment, and deep seeded fear.
Here arrives Advent: the beginning of the Church’s liturgical calendar year and a decree to wait.
What does waiting mean for us today? Does waiting hold immense weight? Does it feel like an anchor? Does it taste, smell, and unfold as fear?
As I read the Gospel text from the lectionary for the first Sunday of this Advent season, I searched for hope.
Let’s read Matthew 24:36-44 from the Common English Bible together and then piece together our present hope in a said to be “dying world.”
Gospel: 36But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the heavenly angels and not the Son. Only the Father knows.37 As it was in the time of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Human One.38 In those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark.39 They didn’t know what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. The coming of the Human One will be like that.40 At that time there will be two men in the field. One will be taken and the other left.41 Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left.42 Therefore, stay alert! You don’t know what day the Lord is coming.43 But you understand that if the head of the house knew at what time the thief would come, he would keep alert and wouldn’t allow the thief to break into his house.44 Therefore, you also should be prepared, because the Human One will come at a time you don’t know.
Matthew out the gate gives us a breath of pause from our worry and fear over missing the arrival of Christ. “Nobody knows what day or hour…only the Father…” Can you imagine what life could be like if we spent less time worrying or living in fear of missing out? If we didn’t allow capitalism’s scarcity mentality to impact our ability to wait for more meaningful interaction; offering?
This passage has been used to intimidate a generation of Christians to view Christ’s coming in a light of “you better watch out…you better not cry…” This particular interpretation blends Christ’s coming as transactional when indeed our waiting and preparing is for celebration, full of hope, grace, and joy that God chooses us every time.
Renewed interpretation: No one knows when a shift is going to take place in our life cycles, useful or un-useful, we hope for such things, remain open, and take comfort that God; our creator, knows and holds this weight of waiting for us.
We are tasked, I believe, to do work in preparing our house, our fields, our communities for the coming of Christ not in fear or worry, but in joy that a light is coming to replenish our offerings.
Here in our advent waiting our souls stir at the whisper of our mother creator. The spirit calls and calls in hopes that here in the waiting and the unjust hardships of our current world, you’ll hear her warmth share “I’m still here.”
Reflection: How do we summon hope instead of fear in our waiting? How do we engage our patience without the rising of scarcity or worry?
I BELIEVE MATTHEW IS SUGGESTING THAT OUR PREPAREDNESS FOR THE COMING OF CHRIST COMES FROM RELEASING CONTROL OF NEEDING TO KNOW EVERY DIVINE DETAIL. OUR PREPAREDNESS COMES FROM NAMING OUR WORLD AND INDIVIDUAL TENDENCIES TO WORRY, TO FEAR, AND LIGHT OUR CANDLES OF HOPE TO CLAIM “GOD IS STILL HERE” EVEN IN OUR WAITING HOLDING THE WEIGHT SO WE CAN PREPARE FOR THE LIGHT.
Collect: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away our anxiety of darkness and fear. Help us to put on the armor of Christ’s coming and present light; our hope – now in the time of our present waiting remind us to breathe and be.
A Seed Knows How To Wait
originally posted Feb 27, 2020
Botanist and author, Hope Jahren shares in her book Lab Girl that “a seed knows how to wait.”
Buried deep in the dirt of creation, seeds wait for the hopeful moment that feels most useful to grow.
This truth of seeds being patient, feeling the ground of which they’ll soon grow from and return feels like a great entry point for this Lenten season.
What truths will our seeds be patient for this season?
It’s a trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light, Jahren shares, that causes these patiently alive seeds to grow and I couldn’t help but think of how during this wilderness, valley like season how many of us – me, certainly – need to have our growth provoked by warmth, water, and light.
How can I nourish my body, spirit, and mind for the venture?
The answer arrived inside a funeral home on Ash Wednesday.
My Death, Dying, & Grief class visited a funeral home early in the morning Ash Wednesday. We observed and learned the experience of death from the family to the deceased. We moved room by room in this funeral home observing the reality of from “dust to dust.”
I am still turning over the moment our guide gripped the door handle to the embalming room, turned, and shared, “We leave the lights on here when there’s a body present. We just feel like turning the lights off is disregarding their existence.”
It was a powerful and sacred moment before entering a space where care is given to the bodies of the no longer living. It provoked thought about the physical light we can hold for one another when we are grieving or moving through particularly hard seasons like Lent.
Lent is here and I feel the whelp of its emotion in my body. I’ve been prepping, perhaps, self consciously through all the crying I’ve been doing this semester. I’ve been facing grief I haven’t actually named within spiritual harm and loss of church as I knew it. And it’s been exhausting work to release it. I’m afraid of the judgement of admitting that church space, certain forms of prayer, and language hold so much harm that I can’t participate in “church” in the conventional form. And, I may never really ever be able to.
I experience God in the hawk I see every day, the wind I feel, and the people who hug me.
I am in transition. And I need the light left on because I am indeed still here. Still believing in the communal gathering of living and deceased saints, in the mystic nature of the divine, in God, in Christ, in this thing we call faith.
I will wonder this wilderness naming and asking of myself and those I love how I can leave a light on. How can I hold a candle in the physical and metaphorical sense for my body, my soil tilling, and for us?
I will be wandering the wilderness and I will not be alone.
May we find hope in our Lenten journeys. May we find ways to be. It is from dust we came and dust we shall return. May we fill our dust with nutrients. May we be as patient as the seeds who know how to wait. The seeds who wait alive and ready to be moved for growth.
May we leave the light on.
Permission to Feel: A Holy Practice
Originally Posted April 4, 2020
Earlier this week I preached for the first time to classmates and friends gathered near and far on Zoom. It was holy.
This week we will enter together into Holy Week and as our traditions and rituals for our Church gatherings have shifted – have faith and pause friends. Resurrection is still possible, even here.
This Holy Week feels more tangible for me, in fact, Lent has felt more alive and widely felt in my bones than ever before. I keep imagining the disciples: How were they feeling in their own isolation knowing of the death of Christ? How were they feeling moments after Jesus shared the cup and bread? Were they scared, doubt-filled, hurting, and full of grief?
What feels most useful to me this Holy Week is leaning into the truth that our emotions here are holy and God is here to hold them with us.
My sermon, “Permission to Feel” was written for my Preaching & Public Proclamation class. At the beginning of the semester I never imagined that I would give it virtually. Our world is so different right now, but our God is very much constant and the same loving God who cares for you – even in your isolation.
Peace to you all friends. May our walk to Holy Week be filled with the truth of how we are feeling and sharing with one another.
Permission to Feel
Our scripture comes from the Gospel of Luke Chapter 22:39-46, as Jesus and his disciples’ journey to the Mount for prayer.
39 He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. 40 When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” 41 Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” 43 Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. 44 In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.45 When he got up from prayer, he me to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, 46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”
Amen.
{Prayer offered over uncertainty, remembrance of our constant God who hears, openness to feel}
I can remember where I was when my friend Daniel told me he had a 10-year-old daughter. Daniel and I had been friends for over 2 years, and I had never seen a photo of her. I remember watching his eyes scan the coffee shop, his face flushed red and I could feel him begin to wrestle the weight of his emotions. He was about to share his whole truth and I could tell he was afraid.
It’s scary to tell someone the truth. It can feel intimately messy. After all it’s our heart that’s involved. There’s fear in the possibility of someone rejecting our core truths of how we’re feeling.
On the night Jesus made his way to the Mount of Olives a weight was setting in over him and his disciples. They had just experienced the ultimate dinner party, except it was no party. It was a funeral procession for a death no one could envision just yet.
At the Mount, Jesus asks the disciples to pray together. And, perhaps within his instruction, Jesus is suggesting the lingering grief from the disciple’s meal was meant to be shared with one another. After all, perhaps we could bear witness to each other’s emotion before it weighs us down.
I wonder how heavy we feel in this moment. Death is lingering in the air in a new and tangible way. Threat of sickness and uncertainty circulate in a 24-hour news cycle and our lives have been disrupted and placed into a new way of being. This is not the lent I signed up for and we certainly are not at the ultimate dinner party. And, perhaps, we too have lingering emotion from the shock of a pandemic. Do we need each other now just as Jesus needed God and his disciples near in this moment?
Just a stone’s throw away, or as I like to imagine, within earshot, Jesus begins to pray, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” It’s the end of this prayer that we remember the most – “not my will but yours be done.”But at the center of Jesus’ prayer rest his humanity and ultimately ours.
“Remove this Cup from me.”
Here is where the son of God, a mortal man, doubts.
Jesus, the same man who spoke at the synagogue in Nazareth, “the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me” pleads with God to “remove this cup” at the height of his call… in the darkest hour of his call … in the most uncertain hour of his life. Just as my friend Daniel’s face flushed red and his body language shifted, I can imagine here that Christ probably looked the same. Kneeling, shifting his body weight, working his way up to … “if you can just take this from me… I’m not sure if I can do it… Dad, do I really have to… remove this cup from me.”
What can we glean from the Jesus who is unsure of his call in this moment? I wonder what kind of comfort it could bring to us to know even the son of God had doubts.
Jesus is showing us that you can indeed release your emotions; your fear; your doubts to God. Jesus is demonstrating that if you feel lost or overwhelmed, you too can kneel before God and name it. And, God will not look at you any less. Because our God is a God who says, “show me your complexities, show me your doubts… and I will comfort you for I made you.”
After releasing his emotion, an angel comes to Jesus and strengthens him. The angel, situated in Jesus’ corner, warms up his shoulders for the task ahead. I like to imagine this is the moment that God says, “I am so glad that you told me how you were feeling, cause I could feel it, and I wanted you to know I am going to take care of you.”
God’s angel intercedes and Jesus’ display of emotion releases the tension.
The text says Jesus was in anguish when he began to pray more earnestly and the meaning of anguish here is framed as a focused struggle; a wrestling. I’d like to suggest that Jesus prays more earnestly because he is wrestling with his emotion. Jesus can focus on the task ahead because he is truthful with not only himself, but with those around him. His sincerity and true conviction at this moment comes from release of his truth. And, let us not forget, his disciples are near … hearing, “Remove this cup from me.”
Now, picturing Jesus as a doubter is probably really uncomfortable and I want to be honest – it was uncomfortable for me, too. I wrestled with this message. I had doubts … and … then I remembered Jesus isn’t the only one in the biblical text who doubts his call: Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah…they all have doubts, fears, and emotions. There are no rejections to their truest truths – God individually meets them at their humanity and listens.
So, what does this text say about Jesus as a human being? What does this mean for us as human beings?
Let me offer a reframing: Jesus is more than the single story of strength and triumph. Jesus is more complex than this! When we diminish Jesus’ humanity, we miss the invitation as disciples to feel and express every ray of emotion before God, to each other, and our community – and that includes our doubts – especially our doubts – because that’s holy too.
When Jesus finished praying, he comes back to the disciples. I imagine this takes two or three steps – remember he’s not been far away – And there Jesus sees that the disciples have fallen asleep because of their sorrow. Sorrow in this passage translates to mean a great “weighing down.”
I wonder for us gathered around computer screens today what could be weighing us down? Are we being honest with ourselves, with each other, and with God about how we feel? Are we afraid to say that we might have doubts in our call, in our current leadership, and in the world around us? What do we do with the weight of what we may be feeling today?
Let’s look to where comfort and truth are administered in the text:
Jesus starts this passage by inviting the disciples to pray and he ends this passage the same way, inviting the disciples to pray.
We, my friends are the disciples, and Jesus is inviting us into the practice of embodying our emotions as holy and worthy of being felt and shared. And, in these present moments of constant shift and change – this practice could not be more needed.
Dr. Marc Brackett, the director of Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, says, “When we deny ourselves the permission to feel, we lose the ability to name what we’re feeling.” In other words, we go numb, we get weighed down – perhaps, as the disciples did, we fall asleep.
Brackett adds that when we keep our emotions to ourselves, they can cloud our ability to be present with ourselves and others. Friends, truly the feelings we experience daily are meant to be heard.
The emotions that Jesus experiences on the Mount of Olives, especially his doubt, is holy. And ours is too.
In the moments when we are unsure of our own calls, when we are not certain what we even believe anymore, when the world is aching … Christ has shown us that sharing our emotion is a holy practice.
To engage in this holy practice, we have to attend to thiscritical truth:
We have permission to feel all our emotions and doubt right now within our faith, our call, our journey, and this world’s aching. Wrestling our emotions doesn’t make us less a believer, weak, or broken. It makes us human. We have the ultimate embodiment of human emotion in Jesus Christ. Let us not forget that being made in the image of God means bearing witness to all our complexities’ as they show up. Just as God held space with Christ at the Mount, may we hold space for each other right now – where we are – how we are – all of our feelings.
We do not have to go out alone in this holy practice. In a time where uncertainty is on full display…. We need to hold space for one another.
We have permission to feel.
Our holy practice of sharing our emotion and doubts starts with a simple question: “How are you doing?”
Our collective “remove this cup from me” moment is in how we share the truth to this question and in return invite another person to share as well. Our holy practice is in the release and holding of one another within community.
During this season of physical distancing and uncertainty, we may need more than ever space to release our truth: I’m tired. I’m angry that classes are no longer in person. I’m sad that I didn’t get to say goodbye to colleagues graduating. I’m lost. I’m anxious about the future. I’m grateful for this moment.
Each response is holy, precious, and worthy of being heard. May we be so bold to tell the truth; to release the cup for nourishment. God is listening, even now, ready to hold your emotion.
To finish the story I started, Daniel shared his immense doubt that people would view him differently if they knew of his life before he came out. Daniel and I embraced, and he began to tell his story more earnestly.
May we do the same boldly. May we make space for such offerings of holy emotion with one another. And may we stay brave in doing so.
Amen.
Revolutionary Love: Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis
On Thursday morning I sat in my tiny closet cuddled up by my computer to interview Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis. Later that day someone would ask me what was the one thing in my day that brought me joy. I would reply, “My zoom call with Dr. Lewis.”
I cannot stress enough how wonderful Lewis is as a pastor and activist in our world. At one point, we air hugged one another. In our new way of being, it’s the human connection we make with one another through voice and sharing that sustains. I hope this episode sustains and comforts you, especially as we reach into the depths of Holy Week.
Lewis’ message of revolutionary love is timely and moving. There’s so much goodness in this episode, but if I had to suggest a peak moment it would be Lewis’ response to “what can you do?” (min 30:17) At one point Lewis also reads Lynn Ungar’s poem “Breathe,” which is also worth a listen.
The Rev. Jacqueline J. Lewis is Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, a 1,300-member multiethnic, welcoming, and inclusive congregation in New York City. She is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and earned her Ph.D. in Religion and Society/Psychology and Religion at Drew University. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Dr. Lewis hosted “Just Faith,” an on-demand television program on MSNBC.com and is a frequent media commentator. Her books include The Power of Stories: A Guide for Leaders in Multi-racial, Multi-cultural Congregations, Ten Strategies for Becoming a Multiracial Congregation, and the children’s book, You Are So Wonderful! She is currently at work on a book on how to heal souls and our world.
Holy Saturday: Cries for Possibility
It is during these times of physical distancing that I have found the biblical text more a manual for survival than an ancient collection of stories I must find ways to interpret. The Israelites, a community that crossed seas, deserts, and enemies ready to demolish their existence, have been where we are in many ways.
I once heard Barbara Brown Taylor speak on wilderness and what she said provoked a reaction of intrigue and a shutter of the reality of how wilderness can be deadly.
“Wilderness has to be something that could kill you – that kicks your faith in gear,” she said. “Anything that shows you just how breakable you are and those around you is wilderness.”
Taylor spoke truth that still resonates in this moment:
Wilderness is a part of the human condition and no one gets a pass.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR
I believe deeply that our wildernesses are cyclical and what our current wilderness proves to us is we indeed do nothing in life alone. Perhaps, if meaning making is a route you take, we’re learning the only way through wilderness is together and the trip’s core needs are meager. We only need each other.
However, in our western culture, “each other” is a very discouraged modality of thinking. Expressing emotion to one another, needs, and communal existence isn’t one our western society encourages.
As Dr. Marc Brackett puts it – it’s been thirty years since emotional intelligence was introduced to humans and we’re still stuck on how to answer the most basic question: “how are you doing?”
The reason for this disconnect of interconnectedness might be found in how our western society desires a separation of sharing emotion. Brackett shares “we all believe that our feelings are important and deserve to be addressed respectfully and fully. But we also think of emotions as being disruptive and unproductive – at work, home, and everywhere else.”
How can we move through this season of wilderness together, if we don’t believe in the validity of being heard, seen, or being a community?
Perhaps we would more quickly come together during this pandemic wilderness if we had access to our imagination and truth that we can and were designed to be in relation to one another, or as Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, “embodying our feelings generates robust action.” An action, I suggest, that translates into becoming human with one another and not just self.
In our sudden rupture of isolation, there is good news emerging. In this moment, we have the ability to write a new story; a redemptive way forward.
The rupture point for the Israelites throughout their venture across the biblical text – if I may be so bold – was in communal justice filled living.
And, here we are, walking such a journey in our present moment.
The Israelites cries and moans for more in the wilderness are known well to us in this moment. More PPE, more healthcare, more equity in housing, more truth telling around racial disparities – more.
By the time the Israelites were granted permission to return to Jerusalem they found themselves on new ground. They were without a temple, a way to participate in past rituals, and with a new question: “What will life look like now?”
Friends, our wilderness will demand a new way of being and it can be for the better. So, what do we need on this wilderness trip? A sense of meager living. Barbara Brown Taylor adds to this meagerness by suggesting we must cultivate something lean enough to live into. In other words, we do not need the latest cocktail hour, a fancy night out, or gadget. We need sustenance with a lack of all the fat we are accustomed too.
Perhaps the way your faith has carried you up until this point isn’t working. The prayer chains are failing and death is still occurring. Here is where our faith is challenged and perhaps resurrects into something new.
In the wilderness there are no outside sources to numb the realities of our world. There is only truth and our means to survive and call to alter the disparity.
Holy Week, especially this Holy Saturday, reminds us that life and death are in existence together. But, in the presence of both, our God is constant. What we do with this reverence is up to us.
Holy Saturday marks this truth, Jesus, a Brown Palestine Jew, was murdered by Empire. Today, we are facing Empire in new ways, but the truth echoes the same. Black and Brown individuals are dying at alarming rates and the disparities are strewn across this wilderness path we are collectively walking.
Our cries from our physical isolation can still be heard. Our outrage to such truth can still bring change. Our meager supply is embodied in our resilience to come together and do a new thing. We only need each other. That is more than good enough.
Henderson-Espinoza states that we cannot reform systems and I stand by that notion. Just as the Israelites replanted their fields, we must replant our fields that center the margins and erases the inequity in our country. We must, as Henderson-Espinoza suggests, “unmask systems failing the least of these.”
Here in our rebirth; our resurrection – together – we can weave a new narrative. We can create conditions of possibility.
This virus that plaques the bodies of many is not divine punishment, it is a virus that is attacking our bodies. And, on this Holy Saturday, I sit with the reverence of the death it has caused and will continue to cause.
My hope and prayer is that we will rise anew people from this collective wilderness we are walking. May we become liberated from the hold capitalism has on our rest and creativity. May we liberate those on the margins who have lived their lives in unimaginable conditions. May we plant new fields and turn no one away. May we resurrect the Gospel of love, mercy, and humility.
Books / Authors Mentioned:
Activist Theology, Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
Permission To Feel, Marc Brackett, Ph.D.
Barbara Brown Taylor, Notes from Evolving Faith 2019