Living Justly, Listening Humbly

Justice is what love looks like in public,
just as tenderness is what love feels like in private.
 —Cornel West

There is so much more to do. The jury in the Derek Chauvin murder trial returned a verdict last week, guilty on three charges. While in some ways it is a relief, the verdict is not an ending. Nor is it a beginning. Rather it is one more story which reveals the lingering legacy of our nation’s original sin of racism. It confronts us in an eight minute and 46 second video recorded by a 17 year old bystander, as a black man lays on the ground, struggling to breathe, calling out for his mother, all the while a white police officer presses his knee into his neck. But it is just one tragic story, in a long history of horrific stories.

We wonder what we can do? We don’t live in Minneapolis, or Boston, or Chicago, or Elizabeth City, NC, or  Louisville—the list of cities grows longer. Yes, we must educate ourselves, on the full history of our nation and its complicated history of race. And yes, we as a denomination have committed ourselves to being an anti-racist/pro-reconciling church. In March I participated in the new anti-racism training required for Kentucky Disciples clergy. The Northern Lights region of which I was a part for 20 years has long required regular anti-racism training for clergy and expanded resources for congregations, too.  Even so, book studies and training will not suffice. We know that.

In small groups recently several people have expressed their desire to become better listeners. It’s as if we know there are stories out there we haven’t heard, perspectives we don’t understand. The ability to listen openly, deeply to another is not easy for many of us. I confess in important conversations my mind often rushes forward to what I might say in response, rather than slowing down to receive what another person is saying. The practice of listening takes time and requires intention. As individuals and as a congregation there is work for us to do here.

In 2020 Disciples at the national level provided a series of conversations online called, “Love Is an Action Word.” The videos are available on the Disciples YouTube channel. The town halls featured voices from around our denomination focusing on anti-racism/pro-reconciliation issues and the church. The series begins with a conversation among white Disciples clergy on avoiding complicity in racism, and follows up with seven sessions with indigenous, North American Pacific Islander/Asian Disciples, Hispanic, African-American, and LGBTQ+ Disciples. If you missed the series, I invite you to watch them. The conversations are a good place for us to begin to listen to voices outside of our usual circles.

It is easy to despair, to think things will never change, but we are Easter people. In this Easter season we Christians are given another story, not of death and violence, but a story of resurrecting life. Easter gifts us with the ability to imagine another way of living together, of liberating ourselves from the systems of oppression which trap us all in cycles of violence and injustice. May we learn to listen with compassion, and may God open our hearts and minds to imagine a world shaped by God’s holy shalom.

​--Pastor Nancy