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Sermon February 7, 2021
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers,
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Year B
http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi5_RCL.html
Audio: /documents/Service_February_7_2021
Video: https://youtu.be/hzxKWGgGEuo
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
I cannot help it. Every time this passage from Isaiah comes up in the lectionary, I am totally drawn to it. I think it is because this was my father’s favorite Bible verse. He carried a copy of this verse in his wallet for most of his life. It was a touchstone for him and when I was going through a really tough time, my parents sent me flowers with this Bible verse on the gift card.
Today we observe Black History Month. In the past year, we have seen increasing efforts to address racism in our country. There have been Black Lives Matter protests all over the country, even here in Perry County. Monuments to the Confederacy, including names of public buildings, are being changed.
We as a society are being asked to look carefully at our public safety system and be creative and imaginative in building a public safety system that works for everyone. Health disparities and inequalities are in our face during this pandemic. Black and brown people have gotten the virus more often and have died from it more often. Black and brown people are not being vaccinated as quickly as those of us who are White.
Students and alumni in area school districts are organizing to address racism. There is a Facebook group called Racism at Biglerville High School. The experiences that Black and Brown students report having experienced will break your heart.
Students, alumni and administration at West Perry High School have formed a committee to look at creating a more diverse curriculum. They believe a more diverse curriculum will better prepare them for the future.
This year’s parochial report that must be filed with The Episcopal Church by March 1, asked some pointed questions of us about our activities in 2020 for racial justice and reconciliation. Vestry discussed these questions at our January meeting. We were asked whether our congregation is actively addressing and working toward racial justice and reconciliation. We were asked whether this work is a priority for our parish and whether the Vestry and Rector are committed to this work. Vestry agreed that this work is a priority for our Parish.
Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video titled, 2020: the year of reckoning for US Christian white supremacy. It is an interview with Robert P. Jones on his book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. Dr. Jones has a PhD in religion and an MDiv. He founded the Public Religion Research Institute. He created a research instrument to assess the level of racism in Christian denominations. What he discovered, no matter how much he tried to look at the research more deeply is that White Christian mainline traditions scored 7 out of 10 on the scale…highly racist and white supremacist. Yet, those with no church or denomination affiliation scored a 4. There is something in the Christian denominations in the United States, possibly in the history of the denominations, that passes on a superiority of whiteness.
There is clearly much work to be done in the area of racial justice and reconciliation, even in understanding what those terms mean and how we go about addressing them.
I’ve always remembered the sermon I heard back in the early 90s on these Bible verses. It was preached by Dr. Washington as part of a People’s Institute training I attended. He emphasized that we need to take lessons from the Eagle. Eagles and other raptors, find the wind currents and ride them higher and higher into the sky. They don’t flap, flap, flap their wings, but go with the currents.
Dr. Washington said that we who work to address racism need to find those currents in our work or else we may become exhausted and not able to do the work at all.
Taking time to find the currents working to address racial justice and reconciliation is important. We must be intentional in listening for those winds and riding them in our efforts to do this work. We must continue to put racial justice and reconciliation as a priority of our parish.
Make no mistake, this work can be frustrating and draining. I mean haven’t we been working on racial justice and reconciliation most of our lives? Yes, some things have changed and yet so much needs to be done. It just seems that in the year 2021, we should be farther along and not fighting the same issues over and over again.
So, let us, like the eagles, find those currents of change that will renew our strength, so that we can run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.
Amen
White Too Long: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Too-Long/Robert-P-Jones/9781982122867
YouTube video: https://youtu.be/kdDy1WZ37uM
