Being a White Ally: Sermon on Mark 10:17-31
Many of
us are grieving, and will grieve, for a very long time, the death of our
brother Chuck Melchert. We love you, Anabel, and we are here to love you along
this journey.
Chuck
was a dear friend of mine, a mentor really. Not everyone here knows that Chuck
was a brilliant scholar, both in educational ministries and in the Bible’s
wisdom literature. I’ve known very few people, maybe a handful, whose lives so
integrated the values they said they lived by with their hour by hour
living. Chuck was that guy.
One day
we were playing golf, just walking along, and Chuck said, “Greg, there’s
something I’ve been meaning to talk with you about.”
Uh-oh.
This could not be good. Chuck almost never criticized me. In 20 years, maybe he
criticized me three or four times. But I could tell something was on his mind.
Chuck sat in on my classes sometimes at the seminary.
“When
African Americans share from their life experiences, you often respond by
trying to show that you already understand what they’re saying. That
invalidates their contributions, and it makes things about you.”
Oh.
I mean,
how could what Chuck said be anything other than true? It wasn’t the kind of
thing he could have misunderstood. It wasn’t the kind of thing I could explain
away. The only thing this could be was a good friend looking out for me, having
the courage to tell me the truth about myself, trying to help me become a
better person and a better teacher, trying to help the world become a better
place.
This was
the truth, coming from a lover and a practitioner of the truth. What else could
it be?
And it
was just the third hole.
Those of
us who are white, who wish to join alongside our African American sisters and
brothers in the work of justice, who want to be allies, we all have a long way
to go.
There
are many reasons to be an ally. For one thing, it’s the right thing to do – and
ordinarily, we just gravitate to the right thing. It feels good to do the right
thing.
For
another thing, being an ally brings enormous joy, relationships that enrich our
lives, challenges that offer a sense of growth and accomplishment, the sense of
an emerging freedom as we free ourselves from the distortions and limitations
of our racist upbringing and our race-bound society. It’s almost impossible to
describe the joy of liberation that accompanies being an ally – the primary
reason for doing do.
Yet, as
Chuck Melchert reminded me that one day, we have a long way to go. Chances are,
we’ll always have a long way to go. Like the disciples in Mark’s story. We may
start off well. We will succeed here and there. We may even make the occasional
heroic sacrifice. But if we think we have arrived. If we think we’ve got it….
Brothers and sisters, we have a long way to go.
That’s
how it is. That’s where Jesus meets us. And that grace has to be enough.
1
In our
Gospel reading Peter wants Jesus to appreciate that he’s given up a lot to
follow Jesus. “Lord, we’ve left everything to follow you!”
Peter
wants assurance from Jesus. He wants praise. He wants Jesus to thank him.
Now, let
us admit, Peter is telling the truth. Before we go hard on him, he’s telling
the truth.
And he’s
not just speaking for himself. The other disciples have left home. They’ve
abandoned their families. They’ve done as Jesus commanded, prepped the crowds.
They’ve even performed some healings and exorcisms. It’s no small thing what
the disciples have done. Confronted with the enormity of Jesus’ challenge, they
just want a little recognition.
Peter’s
not just speaking for himself.
There’s
a part of us, whenever we do the right thing, that just wants to be
appreciated. There’s a part of us that craves recognition. It’s natural. Maybe
it’s even wired into us by God to help us do what’s right.
If we
see a little child alone in the grocery aisle, lost and crying and scared, and
we take that child to the customer service station, and we wait to make sure
the child is reunited with her or his parents, sure, it’s nice when they say
thank you. Sure, that’s nice.
But
let’s get real. We’ve only done what we should do. What any decent person would
do. To abandon that child, to leave him or her crying and frightened and
vulnerable, we’d never do that. Helping that child is our job. Helping that
child is the basic thing, the human thing. Do we really need thanks?
When we
step out as allies, we are only doing the human thing, nothing more. We live in
a world filled with monsters. And people of color, and women, and sexual
minorities face the monsters of injustice every day – we’re not being heroes as
allies, and we deserve no parades.
Peter wants
reassurance. “Lord, we’ve left everything!” And maybe this isn’t the time to be
asking for gratitude. Maybe we don’t need extra credit for doing the right
thing.
2
There’s
also joy. So much joy. So much freedom. In being an ally of any kind.
In 1996
my family and I joined an Open and Affirming church for the first time. It was
First Congregational in Memphis, a United Church of Christ congregation that
had been all but dead just a few years earlier. They’d called a young pastor
right out of seminary, told her she was welcome to do whatever it took, and she
helped the congregation transition into embracing everyone – all people, no
matter what their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their class, their
race – everyone.
When
this straight white couple joined this church it had a problem. Same problem we
have here at Wisdom’s Table – running out of room! So much joy. All kinds of
people so happy just to be in a church where there was no question about their
presence, or anyone’s presence. So much joy. So much love.
May I
say it? Such pretty flowers. And such amazing food. Well.
Jesus
tells would-be allies it’ll be like this.
When you
become an ally, you might lose some family. Yes?
You
might strain some relationships. Yes?
It might
hurt. Yes?
But look
what comes in return?
So I
joined the church softball team when they asked. Nobody told me that this
Southern Baptist had just joined Memphis’ gay softball league. Wanna know how I
found out? I was filling out the roster, and there was a sexual orientation
box…. And even though I played varsity baseball in college, for the first time
in my life I was the best man on a softball team. The best man. We had lesbians
better than me, maybe. One or two.
And so
much love. So much joy. Such good food.
But I am
being shallow. When LGBT students and friends called me into the work of sexual
and gender justice advocacy, I had no idea how those relationships would set me
free. I thought I was doing those students a favor, using my leverage as a
faculty member and a scholar to advocate for them. I thought I was helping out.
I was
arrogant. I was wrong. I was short-sighted. I had no idea how desperately I
needed to be set free from my assumptions about being a man, about sex and
relationships, about acting out my masculinity – about being something I’d been
raised to be but nobody actually can be – not without deep injury to
oneself and to other people. I had no idea I needed –
I had no
idea that, straight as I was, I had no idea I needed to become queer like we
all are queer. I had no idea that becoming an ally meant – in a way –
In a way
--
Coming out.
Please be gracious to me here. This is tender
territory. I do not mean to appropriate for those of us who are privileged,
those who are straight, what it means to come out as a person who does not live
in the privilege of the majority –
I don’t mean that –
I don’t know what that means –
How could I know what that means –
But I do mean there’s a process of going public, of
going loud, of saying – I stand with people, and I need them too, and I am an
ally. My friends bless my life. And don’t you dare hurt them.
So much joy. So much
healing. A hundred fold. Jesus says.
3
So we
allies must be humble. It’s our job to listen, to learn, to follow. It’s our
job to be present, to show up, to be humble.
To be
humble.
To be
humble.
To be
humble.
In being
an ally, we learn that people of color confront racism every day. They, better
than we, understand how it works, what’s at stake, where wisdom lies.
To be an
ally means to show up. People of color don’t get to pick and choose when they
will encounter racism, but white allies enjoy the privilege of hiding when
we’re uncomfortable. Faithful allies show
up.
We’ll
need to do our homework, to learn how racism operates, to see that racism is
more than people who say racist things and discriminate in overt ways. We’ll
begin to understand that racism is at work when some schools, schools with high
percentages of students of color, get less support than other schools do – and
Pennsylvania is the worst – that racism is at work when white and black people
get different outcomes in the criminal justice system, that racism is at work
when opportunity does not come to us equally. When we do our homework, we’ll
know racism not as an individual problem but as a problem basic to our society
– and we’ll work to change it.
As allies,
we’ll enjoy relationships of accountability. We’ll build relationships with
other white allies, people like Chuck Melchert, who will educate us, hold us
accountable, encourage us in the journey. We won’t depend on people of color to
carry that burden. It’s just too exhausting.
But we
will also build relationships of accountability with people of color. Not just
casual, “Hi, how are you?” Not just hugs. But relationships. Travel together.
Visit each other. Eat together. Share together. Learn together. Relationships
that change us, that bring us to new places. Not just “I have friends,” but
“I’ll stand up with you.”
I can’t
tell you how many times friends of color have squared me up. Honestly, I don’t
know what they think of me when they do. I can still see Kendal Brown, who used
to run admissions at Lancaster Seminary. We were hiking. I don’t even remember
what we were talking about, but I used the word “blackmail.” Kendal turned on a
dime. Did you just use that word?
And I’d never
thought about it.
Or the
conversations about politics or policy or how theological education should
work, and colleagues like Stephen Ray in Chicago, or Margaret Aymer in Austin
or Sam Tsang, whom I barely know in person, who would just say, “You know, we might know what’s at stake for us better
than you do.”
Or
Lancaster students who would tell me, “Maybe you’re taking this a little too
casually.”
And you
know the wonder of it? As far as I know, I still receive love and friendship
from all of these people. Love and friendship I would trade nothing for.
As
allies, we’ll learn to follow, learn to lose, learn not to need credit, learn
to be wrong, learn to learn, and learn to show up,
show up,
show up.
To
reliably show up.
As allies, we have so much to learn.
4
Jesus
tells his disciples there’s so much to give up. And so much to gain. Giving up
one way of life and all the things that go with it, coming to find another set
of relationships and commitments and all the joys that go with it.
So very
much. One hundred fold.
A funny
thing, if you look at our Gospel lesson.
There
are the things disciples give up: house or brothers or sisters or mother or
father or children or fields.
And the
things we receive in return: houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and
children, and fields, with persecutions.
The
things we give up include fathers. There are no fathers among the things that
come back to us. For in Jesus’ new family there are no heads of households. No
one above the rest. All are one in Christ Jesus.
All are
allies. If we truly want hundreds, thousands, countless mothers and sisters and
brothers and children – beyond counting, all joy – if we truly want to enter
the boundless community of Jesus and his followers, we must welcome the
possibility that we cannot be leaders.
We can
be allies. Amen.
