Sermons

“Will You Let Me Be Your Servant?”

Micah 6:6-8; 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 – Lace Watkins

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) – September 30, 2018

Where were you on August 28, 1963?

I know where I was. I was in my grandparents’ house, nine short days after being born in a segregated clinic—hospital would be too lofty a word—in southcentral Arkansas. I do not remember what I was doing at the time when hundreds of thousands of people were marching in Washington, maybe sleeping in the heavy August Arkansas air, living in what was the ‘colored section’ of Camden. I am pretty sure the TV was turned to the March. I think of my mother holding me, thinking about her newborn’s future, a future that now held more hope than it had not two weeks before. A future where the content of my character would matter more than the pecan color of my skin; where my broad nose and full lips would be features and not bugs, a future where I was the equal of all. A future where I could step fully into a world that would welcome Lacie Janine like it never had for my namesake, my grandmother Lacie Mae, gloriously profane, deeply committed to walking a path with her God, so long as she could still dip snuff. A future where my humanity, and theirs, would be fully and finally settled. This was my heritage, more a hope actually, for her infant daughter.

Vista La Mesa turned 15 that year. And I feel our heritage—may I call it ours?—I feel our heritage, every time I enter this space, as I walk the hallway from the sanctuary to the fellowship hall, and see the ‘ancestors’ of this church. I feel it as I run my hands over the wood. I feel it as I caress some of the old books in the library, as I gingerly touch the portraits of the giants of the faith that I adopted, but who adopted me first. They had no way of knowing that a ‘colored girl’ would one day take the pulpit to talk of the promise of both myself and of this church 55 years ago. They did not know they were preparing a place for me. Nor did I as I journeyed through my formation, first as a Black Missionary Baptist, then an Evangelical Wesleyan, then a Mennonite, then Anglican, and now finally and solidly here. Remnants of them all are woven into my soul and psyche, and they have come to rest here. In this very real way, fragments of The Promise of August 1963 have been fulfilled.

The Promise of the March

But only fragments. The March spoke of freedom, yes, but it also spoke of pride. Of the strength that comes from decisively shaking off toxic yokes of shame, of oppression, of punishment for mere existence. This pride informs my faith journey. Note that I said pride, not pridefulness. Of expansiveness, but not grandiosity. Of assurance, but not arrogance. Of inheritance, but not of entitlement.

Not everyone applauded. Including in the Churchand yes—including this denomination. Where some saw liberation, fulfillment of the Law 2.0, others saw threat. Where some saw congruence, rebirth, others saw loss, deviation, distortion, and loss—of supremacy, culture, even loss of the faith itself. So to talk about promise is also to talk about hard things, the places where there has been fulfillment, yes, but also to speak, carefully but candidly, of promise also denied, deferred, incomplete.

We have to face facts in the life and history of The Church. Dr. King’s words at the March candidly, even brutally stated the problem but then quickly pivoted to a template for what the church, and what America could look like. When I re read King’s words I am both dismayed at how much was still to do, but also convicted with the charge of burnishing that half century old template to guide s today.

As I walk with head upright, eyes full frontal, shoulders squared, I am aware that there are people a half century later who would have me bow again. Not here. Not in this place. But when I leave the haven of my newfound adopted heritage, I am made aware in the week afterward, sometimes days, mere hours afterward that my liberation is, for some, still provisional, my humanity still contested, my spiritual birthright, my very citizenry in the Kingdom, like those of immigrants on the border, ultimately revocable.

Much as I sometimes hate to, I have to leave the sanctuary of this sanctuary to a world which is all too often all too hostile for people who look like me. A world often hostile to me and to my skinfolk.

Making way; giving up space; embracing grace

Who owns the words we use to talk about race? All too often the words of social justice movements, including racial justice movements, are ‘owned’ by dominant culture. Maybe not at first, but over time, meanings get eroded and distorted; rendered impotent. This is unfortunate.. It is an act of liberation to reclaim them. And so we will here.

To give up space in this context is to yield. Which sounds easier than it actually is. Because we often have no idea, just what it is, and just how much it is, that we hold on to, cling to, insist upon before we will fully embrace the Other.

Embedded in this yielding is surrender. It is literally allowing someone to go first so they can serve best. Matthew 20:16 says ‘The Last Shall Be First’, everyone knows this. But seriously though, what does that mean in our society? If that were actually true, why doesn’t the cleaning crew at the County campus have the parking spaces closest to the door? Why do we lead with our occupation and education—if we have them? Why do we talk of tenure and longevity? Why do we set the terms that always ‘just happen’ to give ourselves privilege and primacy?

Most of you know that I come from a Mennonite background. I was not born into Anabaptist theology; I was convinced as they say, and even now, as a confirmed Disciple, I still hold a good deal of their teachings close to both my heart and to my praxis. Note what I just said; it’s important. I hold their theology and their teachings, commentary and practice; not so much their learned culture.

I am not an 8^th generation child of German-Swiss and Russian immigrants invited over by William Penn; nor did I cross Russia, drop down into Canada, and then into the Midwest, and now grow soybeans, no, I am the child of uncertain pedigree (to be a black person in America means often not knowing just from where you sprang, which is why so many of us insist upon and affirm our adopted status in the Kingdom; we could rip a page from that) whose heritage is a mélange of nations and tribes in Africa and in the Americas, who relied on oral tradition, and a melding of traditions that slaveowners did their best to rip from us, but ultimately failed; that fragrance, that essence, lingers with me still.

No silent folded hands; but hands lifted up in praise and supplication worshipping with our whole bodies. No buggies, but rather long cars, Caddies and Lincolns and Buicks and Chryslers of my growing up years that spoke of outward anointing. No performative modesty, but rather a determined and hard fought pride that we too were children of the King, and in the house of the Lord, even if the world vehemently disagreed, we were worthy.

Every inch of us worthy, and we could exhale and sing loud and sway hips and sometimes, when the English that supplanted our mother tongues was and is simply insufficient, we could speak syllables that only our God understands. We bring our melanin and our curly hair and our deep timbre and we are assured that, in this place, even if nowhere else, we know that God made these attributes and gifted them to us, and proclaimed it good.

So the *culture* of Anabaptists, which is what most people think of when they think of Mennonite or Amish, is not my own. No shoofly pie, but rather sweet potato and peach cobbler. No Low German four part; but the harmonies and swaying and chanting of my slave and Native ancestors, with echoes of a motherland, both motherlands really, that I will never inhabit, but is deeply embedded into my collective consciousness. No plain dress in drab colors and aprons and white kappes that look painfully like what we were forced to wear during slavery, but sharp suits and big hats and pointy two toned shoes, clothing that spoke of freedom, where janitors and maids and sharecroppers could bring their best selves to the Lord.

But often in Mennonite circles, especially when people of color caucused, there were stories of the ‘birthright’ people with whom they worshipped caring more about their assimilating into *their* established culture; caring more about dress and style of speech than about theology or praxis. Caring about when we said ‘all right now’ or ‘preach’ or ‘waaallll’ as some of us were wont to do. Caring about the ‘smelly’ things we brought to potlucks. Caring about heels over sensible shoes. Caring more about the style than about the substance.

But. I can say with some small confidence that as at least *some* of my forebears were disembarking slave ships and burdened with their masters’ names—like Watkins and Scott, or native names like Broadnax, my grandfather’s in what would become the Carolinas, others with names like Yoder and Schunk, and Bender and Moyer and Stoltsfutz were surveying the green of Pennsylvania. And even while one heritage has been lauded and idealized, and the others degraded and minimized, our God proclaims them *both* good.

This heritage is what I brought to Mennonites, is the sum of who I am. And these pebbles of ancestry and of heritage, these ancient sands of origin is what I brought to *this* space eight months ago. And so it is that the path we walk together holds collard greens and lumpia and enchaladas and pho as well as kale and casserole to sustain us on the journey. Our newly created space has room for it all to serve the plate and to eat it, together, with grace and intention, and dare I say, communion.

So when we say in justice work ‘making space’, which sounds good, I guess, what does that actually mean? When unpacked, it is perhaps less benign than one might think. Just whose space it is that we are holding anyway? To whom does it *really* belong?

What if you’re not sure about the person you are holding? What if you think that their tone is off, or the voice is loud and harsh to your ears? What if the person for whom you are making space wants your arms spread wider or to be held even closer so you can see their very pores?

What if they bring something into the space you are not used to and are not at all sure that you’ll like? In the TV show ‘Friends’, there is an episode where Rachel, who had just moved in with Monica, brought in a lamp that was to go into the living room that Monica had lovingly curated, in a space ‘shared’ with Rachel, but was actually fully Monica’s. Hilarity ensued, but the point is a real one. Can those who come to our space bring themselves, and their lamps, their Light, fully into a space that we feel that we have already fully furnished with our heritage and tradition?

What if the person for whom you are holding space holds out their brown or caramel or black arms for you, because *they* see *your* brokenness and need and humanity and are called to make space for you? Being willing to hold is great. It is a good beginning. But communion and abiding cannot only be on our terms; walking together with the Other cannot only be at our pace and our cadence and our timing.

So when I suggest and invite new ways to look at words and phrases I mean it. When I talk about making way and giving up space I am serious. As Jesus did, we need to interrogate and consider amending, or even upending existing structures that leave no room for all of our brethren to breathe and to fully abide. In Galatians 3:28 we read that There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female; we also see this question asked and fully answered in Romans 3, quite enthusiastically in the Contemporary English version: ‘Does God belong only to the Jews? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, He is!’—when I read these passages I see the need to give up some control to acknowledge and live out, as our own Michael would say what God has already done with us; he aligned Godself with us through Jesus— to move through and in and with and around all of us. We are encouraged to bring our whole selves and whole heritage and history through these doors. God created it, and us, all, for all of us. He wants us all.

We need to bring curiosity and openness into this space, with anticipation of what our God will do with all of us if we acknowledge the divine humility that god embedded into the aligning of that Godself with us in Christ. We need to tolerate—not just put up with, but fully embrace. We need to tolerate our own internal states and embrace discomfort, even some disorientation, as God has embedded within us that divine humility through scripture, spirit, sacred oral tradition, and our encounters with us even now.

This walk will cost you

         One of the unfortunate selling points of Civil Rights 1.0 was the idea that racial harmony or ‘tolerance’ would cost dominant culture very little, if anything. This was and is an approach that was bound for failure, because like walking the path of a Disciple, the cost is embedded in the very pavement, the concrete, the cobblestones, the very dirt path we are called to traverse.

If you are called to walk this path, and make no mistake, you are, we are, because the very soil is mixed in so thoroughly with the path of Christ as to become indistinguishable, it will cost you. You will not leave this walk clean. Nor will you leave it unscathed. The dust of our ancestors, yours and mine, will cover your shoes. Every attempt at connection; every lurch towards what we know is God’s way, even as we take steps backward, every halting conversation, every risk—of influence, of family, of status, of financial resources, of your very self, will come at a price. If you choose to walk with me, you will feel my pain. My walk has deep dips sometimes. You will feel them underfoot.

That price is service. In the fullest sense of the term. As we consider words, we have to consider other words that have morphed in their meanings, words that, for this brown girl, can be very fraught indeed. But these words are necessary ones. Absent them, we refuse to fully embrace the very meaning of our call. Doing for the Other is service; we rock at that, look no further than Welcome Saturday. But receiving blessing from the Other is as much an act of service. It is risk to extend the hand. It is equally risky, and upends the order in ways I am convinced that Jesus endorses, to grasp the outstretched hand as well.

But. Even as we consider these words—humility, service, yielding, modesty– we need to keep in sharp focus what these words, in their distorted form—servitude, humiliation, subjugation, shame– have historically meant for persons of color. As a black woman, the idea of literally or metaphorically washing anyone’s feet in an attitude of stooped back and lowered eyes, of retreat, of accepting less than my inheritance , of the hot flush of shame that comes from humiliation is anathema to me.

Service and its godly cousins are different. I can and will wash your feet with my dignity and humility intact; can look you in the eye as I serve you, can speak into your life with humility and grace, can come to you with assurance, not arrogance, modesty and not grandiosity, and if you will allow the discomfort of this deep level of mutuality and parity, can literally change your life. As you change mine. We must drop shields and let each other into our respective force fields.

The tea bags—Constant Comment—speaks of the charge I will leave you with. The commitment to racial justice and equity must be ever on your lips, staining your hands, steeping in your hearts. Take two. I ask that you find a friend you don’t know is a friend yet, and begin to abide; to learn to both exude and to breathe in; to nourish and to be nourished.

All of this means deep internal work. And as Hannah Gadsby says in the brilliant show ‘Nanette’, a willingness to hold your own tension, rather than displacing. It means ‘tolerance’, not so much as the way it has been incompletely defined, but tolerating the feelings, and triggers, and clenches that this work and call will definitely bring, and staying with these feelings, and doing the work. It means learning and owning your own heritage, from your family and your church and the racialized soup we all live in, looking with kind but candid eyes at your own baggage, assumptions, expectations, and, yes ambivalences, and being ready and willing to purge whatever keeps you from God’s fullness. It means accepting nothing less than the congruence and integrity that comes from aligning yourself squarely with God, as he aligned himself with us through Jesus.

As well, an attitude of curiosity of what the mystery and the alchemy of the Holy Spirit can do to transform distorted and toxic tropes in favor of a shared story that encompasses parity, mutuality and equity. And which enables us and equips us to do for the world what we do for and with and in each other. A commitment to this as something indelibly intertwined with our walk as Christians means this must be a nonnegotiable part of our discipleship and Christian walk, and crucially, it means that there can be no spectators. There are no cheap seats for those who choose this imperative. We walk together as joint heirs.

This means we must out ourselves as a daily, hourly, sometimes minute-by-minute practice, both to the world *and to ourselves* as a people who are both quietly convicted and outwardly committed. It means our aroma—our energy and our call as earthly proxy must pervade everything we do and everywhere we go; our workplaces, our dinner tables, our mentorships, our families, our lives. This cannot be adjunctive or tangential to our faith. Like the aroma of tea, it must infuse and permeate every area of our lives. We must meditate on this constantly; talk about it relentlessly, live it out with robust resilience and reliability. We must exude, in every way possible the aroma of the Holy Spirit with which God has graced us all.

‘For we are to God the aroma of Christ’: I breathed in the aroma, the godly essence of Mary Jane before I even knew her name. I inhaled the enveloping fragrance of Carol, she who shies from fragrance, but who has such a sweet mist of her own. When I am graced to serve you the plate and the bread and the cup, I am almost intoxicated with the different but so enveloping waftings of each of you every bit as potent, and as anointing, as the incense waved around at St. Paul’s Cathedral. When I meet your eyes, I see Christ. I see heritage. And I see the future. We are, each of us, Christ’s cathedral. You have invested so much in me already, and my heart still yearns for more.

As must we all yearn for more, and envision more, and imagine more. Can you imagine VLM 50 years from now? Can you see Walter’s portrait on the wall of the Ancestors? Can you see Cher holding forth, chairing the Board? Can you see Trinity, she whose name embodies our faith, taking bread and breaking it, and then blessing the chalice?

Can we see the empty chairs and imagine Paolo, and Trinh, and Christina, walking in our footsteps, mingling the dust of their heritage with our own?

And please God, I pray that you allow my own fragrance, such as it is, to envelop you all, to pierce you and your force fields so we can even more fully abide. That you allow me to speak with you and to you and into you; that you let me serve you with fierce resilient unyielding love. Exactly the love you have shown to me.

For we are to god the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved, and to those who are perishing. We are called to infuse each other, to warm each other as we do this sacred work. And we are called to, unapologetically, with assurance and confidence that we are firmly in God’s covering, take our fragrance to corners near and far. We are a church that loves each other. Let us love ever more deeply, ever more abundantly, dare I say ever more profligately. 55 years later, let us recommit to the promise and to the template King bequeathed us. Let us assume King’s mantle of justice.