(Delivered Sunday, May 16, 2021, at Black Mountain United Church of Christ)
Prayer: Heavenly God, Creator of all people, architect of every sunrise, weaver of every unique soul. We gather today, asking You to soften the soil of our hearts and open the windows of our minds to receive Your wisdom. May the words spoken honor Your boundless truth, and may the lives we lead, the choices we make, reflect Your holy will, especially as we navigate waters that challenge and stretch us. Be our compass, Lord, on this journey. Amen.
Introduction: An Invitation to the Threshold
Beloved friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, today I want to open a conversation, or perhaps, more accurately, invite us to step together onto the threshold of a conversation vital to our shared life. It’s a conversation about race, about justice, and about the reflection of God’s kingdom here on earth, right here in America. In the coming year, we, as a church family, will have an opportunity to engage in a dedicated process of discernment around these very themes – much like the journey we undertook to become an Open and Affirming congregation for our LGBTQ+ siblings.
I’ll be the first to admit, this is not a comfortable path for many. It’s a path where our individual experiences, shaped by the beautiful and bewildering gift of free will God has given us, might lead us to different starting points. So, to ease us onto this path, allow me to begin not with grand pronouncements, but with a story – my own story of stumbling towards understanding, of learning what it means to be seen, and to truly see.
A Tapestry Woven with "Otherness"
For twenty-two years, my life unfolded far from the shores of my birth. Business took me frequently to the vibrant continents of Africa and Asia, experiences that didn't just broaden my horizons, they rewired my understanding of what it means to be "other." This immersion cultivated within me a profound empathy, a resonance with those who walk the margins, and it underscored a truth: to truly grasp the breadth of human experience, we must sometimes step outside the familiar echo chamber of our own.
My journey began in Iowa City, a landscape predominantly white, and continued in Des Moines. While my schools held a measure of diversity, and my family instilled in me the core belief of human equality, it was moving to Washington D.C. at 24 that truly cracked open my world. There, living in a largely white suburb but finding my spiritual home in a Black urban church, alive with the soul-stirring power of a gospel choir, I first tasted the complex flavor of cultural "otherness."
Then, in 1997, the Netherlands – paradoxically, the whitest place I’d ever lived. Yet, it became my gateway. A business trip to China in 2003 was a profound dislocation. Language, food, logic, even the rhythm of life felt alien. I was adrift. But in that sea of difference, I encountered profound human kindness, patience, even delight, as I fumbled to connect. It was challenging, yes, but it was an immeasurable enrichment.
South Africa, however, etched itself deepest into my soul. Over two decades of visits, I found myself in an inverted American reality. As part of a small white minority in a vibrant, complex African culture, initially, I felt an intimidating "otherness," amplified by the heavy shadows of historical exploitation and vast economic disparities. Yet, slowly, my heart began to find a rhythm there, opening to its people, even as I remained ever-aware of my minority skin.
Even in Europe – twenty-one years in the Netherlands, five in Switzerland – despite fluency in Dutch and later French, the label of "foreigner" was a constant companion. There are subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, currents that remind you that true integration, true belonging, can remain just out of reach.
This sense of "otherness," friends, it has been a constant companion, sometimes a whisper in my own mind, sometimes a tangible barrier. Even now, in 2024, though often invisible, it still finds ways to surface. Consider this: Wilbert and I have been legally married for over fifteen years. It’s a joy we never imagined attainable as young boys from the farm fields of Iowa and North Holland. Yet, even among well-meaning, loving people right here, he is sometimes referred to as my "partner," not my "husband." I ascribe no ill will; we have felt nothing but welcome here. Perhaps it’s old habit, from a time when "husband" wasn't an option for us. But for us, that word – "husband" – is precious. It is the culmination of a dream. Words, indeed, matter. They carry weight. They affirm, or they can subtly erase.
This feeling of being "other," it's… exhausting. To constantly strive to learn, to adapt, to fit, yet to know you can never fully shed that invisible cloak of difference. It’s tiring, but it was also profoundly enlightening. It taught me the irreplaceable value of diversity and laid bare the deep, often invisible, roots of systemic "othering" that run through so many societies.
Homecoming and a Sharpened Gaze
After two decades, I yearned for a certain simplicity, a deeper, more effortless connection I hoped to find back in the United States. And in many ways, I have found it. I feel at home, living a life of richness and depth. I love being immersed in my own culture again. But those years abroad gave me new eyes. I returned hyper-aware of the subtle, pervasive ways "othering" operates within American society itself. And my heart aches for the immigrants, the refugees, the asylum seekers around us, navigating the arduous journey to find their own place, their own sense of home.
The Echo in Our Own Land
And this, beloved, is where my story seeks to connect with ours. My experience of being the "other" abroad, while unique in its details, resonates with a deeper truth about our own nation. I realized that attention I received wasn't always for me – the Spanish interested in American pop culture, my Dutch in-laws in WWII films, the Chinese who saw a Buddha in my belly, the polite but distant Swiss. It was often about their narrative, not mine. I was an object of curiosity, a representative, rarely just a person. The constant, "Where are you from? What are you doing here?" – these microaggressions, however unintended, became a steady drumbeat of my difference.
This hyper-awareness now tunes me into how we, often unconsciously, "other" groups within our own country. And here, I want to pause and speak from the heart. I believe, truly, that each of you here today possesses a good heart. You strive to live lives that reflect Christ’s love. You do not actively seek to harm or diminish others. I would never presume to label any one of you.
The challenge we face, you see, is not primarily one of ill-willed individuals. Yes, fringe groups espousing overt hatred exist. But the deeper, more insidious problem is that systemic racism and othering are woven into the very fabric of our American culture, stretching back to 1619, when the first African peoples were brought to these shores against their will, their labor stolen to build the foundations of a nation yet to be born.
Two hundred years of chattel slavery. Eight generations. Can we truly fathom the generational trauma, the deep societal grooves carved by such a history? How could such a profound wound simply vanish in the relatively short span of 150 years since? My own experiences of "otherness," though different in kind and degree, grant me a sliver of empathy for that enduring impact.
Our Sacred Calling: To See and Be Seen
I believe God is Love. I believe the essence of Jesus Christ is unconditional love, radical compassion. And our scriptures, particularly the New Testament, are a resounding chorus calling us to be a people of compassion, understanding, inclusion, and equity for all of God’s precious children.
This is no small task. It demands we open our hearts and minds in ways that can feel profoundly uncomfortable. We all carry within us what I call a "dominant narrative" – a story about how the world works, our place in it, and others’ places too. The inherent flaw in this narrative is that it’s usually built only on our own experiences and the experiences of those most like us.
The only antidote to a flawed narrative is to courageously open ourselves to the realities of those who are different. To bear witness to their stories, to let their truths wash over us, to allow them to reshape our understanding. Sometimes, it feels like we need a crowbar to pry open our hearts and minds, but only we can do that work, through the willingness to form authentic relationships, to truly listen, and to be changed.
Now, I know it’s not practical for everyone to pack up and move to D.C., China, or South Africa – I hear there are hair appointments and golf tournaments to attend here in North Scottsdale!
But perhaps… just perhaps… you could extend a hand of friendship, open your heart to the story of someone whose path you might not normally cross. Whether it’s a descendant of enslaved African peoples, or here in our Southwest, a Hispanic immigrant, a member of a Native American nation. What might happen if you truly listened to their story, taking them at their word, without overlaying your own narrative? I believe our whole country could benefit from a great deal more listening and a little less preaching.
I also urge you to examine the fullness of America’s true history, and your own. When the brutal murder of George Floyd pierced our national conscience, I felt called to this deeper examination. I discovered the American history I learned in school was… incomplete. Sanitized. Seen through a single lens. Relearning it from multiple perspectives, especially those of African and Native American peoples, has been, I confess, painful. (Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s PBS series on Reconstruction is a powerful place to start.)
Even more challenging is examining my own story. Like many of you, I was raised by parents who taught me to be respectful and kind to all. And those principles are true and good. But looking deeper, I realized my life, then and now, is buoyed by currents of white privilege. That systemic realities were, and are, at play, ensuring advantages for people who look like me. In my upbringing in Des Moines, where the Black population was about 11%, why were virtually all my teachers, doctors, my parents’ colleagues, white? An equitable society would look different. What unconscious messages did that landscape send me about worthiness and power? Despite a polite Iowa upbringing, the pattern persists. Look around us, even here.
The Abundance of God’s Diverse Creation
But this is not just a story of challenge; it is a story of profound opportunity. For in "othering" people, cultures, and experiences, we diminish not only them, but ourselves. We sever parts of our own shared humanity. When we "other" people of African origin, perhaps we wall off parts of ourselves that know how to praise God with unbridled passion and ecstasy. When we "other" Native American peoples, we might lose touch with that deep, sacred connection to this Earth, to God’s magnificent creation. When we "other" Hispanic and Latino peoples, we might miss out on their profound traditions of family unity, radical hospitality, and kindness to the stranger.
By embracing God's infinite diversity, we begin to reclaim these abandoned parts of ourselves. We gain access to the fullness of what God designed us to be as human beings. There is divine wisdom in this! In creating us in such breathtaking diversity, God issues a holy invitation: to come together, to learn from one another, to experience the collective, multifaceted wisdom gifted to our one human race.
An Open Door: Decentering Whiteness
I’ve laid much before you today, and I pray it finds fertile ground in your thoughts. My aim has been to simply open a door, just a crack, to an opportunity for us to explore these themes more deeply as a congregation. The Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ is preparing to offer a new initiative, a path for churches like ours: "Decentering Whiteness: A Path to Restorative Racial Justice."
As Brendon will discuss next week concerning UCC Polity, we, as a congregation, will discern together whether to embrace such programs. But as someone who has walked in the shoes of "the other" for a significant part of my life, and as part of a team that has been developing this program for the past year, I sincerely hope that when this opportunity is presented, we will meet it with open hearts and open minds. This isn't about a political agenda. It is about more fully embodying the radical love and compassion of Jesus Christ. It is about extending that love more completely to our fellow human beings, and in doing so, profoundly enriching our own lives with a fuller, deeper experience of our shared humanity and the incredible potential God has woven into our very being.
I will share more about the program when it is ready, and together, as a church council and congregation, we will decide our path. But today, I simply ask you to take this to God in prayer. Ask for guidance, for courage, for an open heart.
May we all be blessed as we walk this journey. Amen.
