SERMONS

Psalm 137: 1-4
The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ

Countercultural

Not just a different culture, but one where people name the problems they face in the dominant culture that need to be countered — changed.

The people of the wilderness created a Biblical creation story countercultural to the Babylonian creation story of violence, genocide, and hate. A creation story of God’s love and God as Creator of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1 — written at the same time as today’s lectionary text from Psalm 137, by the waters of Babylon.

What would you say is countercultural from our American society’s “norms”? [Listen for responses from the people]

Would you agree with me that countercultural from our society’s norms would be a community that seeks to follow Jesus and what Jesus had faith in by becoming:
-Multi-racial and Anti-racist
-Nonviolent
-and where the children, youth and young people are to be Christ’s Ambassadors

Would you agree that being normal is not the same as being healthy and life-giving?

For who sets the norms in our society? White people.

Exactly.

So, a community that seeks to follow Jesus and what Jesus had faith in by becoming:
-Multi-racial and Anti-racist
-Nonviolent
-And where the children, youth and young people are to be Christ’s Ambassadors — goes against the norms of society.

Yes?

Where it is normal to be:
-Homogeneous – “birds of a feather flock together” is even a phrase used
-Violent –where the largest part of the our country’s budget is spent on militarism and where in our own county, King County’s general fund, over 75% of the budget is used for criminal justice — war on terrorism — which ends up a war on poor people of color. Not to mention that we live in a state that still has the death penalty.
-And where the children, youth and young people are seen as needing to be entertained, made consumers, and socialized that there is no room for you until you are “grown up.”

For the wise and critical mind, in our society, everything that is normal is not healthy and life-giving. Just as our brother from South Africa shared, “Not everything that is Biblical is Christ-like.”

Did you get that?

Everything that is normal in our society is not healthy and life-giving. In fact, most of the time, it is just the opposite.

And everything that is Biblical is not Christ-like — including all the passages in the scriptures written by men about a violent and vengeful God.

This is important to understand as we seek to follow Jesus and what Jesus and faith in, so that Bethany Church is not just called to be multi-racial, but Multi-racial and Anti-racist.

From Bethany’s all church retreat, where we as human beings from different paths, journeyed and continue to journey in Manna and Mercy — many of us were able to name that as a multi-racial church we are to organize in Undoing Racism – which is first and foremost to also undoing classism and heterosexism.
Being multi-racial is not enough. Bethany Church is called to be multi-racial and anti-racist.

Multi-racial is a group’s racial composition which suggests more than two races are involved.

Anti-racist is the vision of the multi-racial group — even one whose mission is doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God — to work toward the undoing of racism.

You get that?

Would you consider Bethany Church multi-racial?
Yes …

Would you see it possible for Bethany Church to be and become anti-racist?
Only as this church community begins to have the vision of working as a multi-racial church to undo racism in everything we do in our lives and in ministry.

Multi-racial and anti-racist are not the same thing.

And yet, this multi-racial Bethany Church will be and become anti-racist with a vision to work toward the undoing of racism.

Now — What is Racism?

People will come up with a thousand definitions and yet, the working definition best used in community organizing to undoing racism is:

Racism is Racial Prejudice and Power.

To be prejudiced is “to possess an attitude or belief which may cause unfavorable or discriminatory actions against others on the basis of the prejudice… when the word “race” is used to qualify the word “prejudice,” it means that race prejudice occurs when anyone holds preconceived, unfavorable views towards others on the basis of race.”
“Power, then, in this context is the ability to organize a society based on race and to make legitimate the superiority of the white race. By power we mean, ‘having legitimate access to the systems sanctioned by the authority of the state.’ When a society is structured by whites on the concept of race, the white race will always have more access to the state-sanctioned systems than the others.”

“In most instances now and throughout history, only Europeans are able to qualify as white. This is because Europeans fled Europe and constructed societies in other parts of the world by forcibly taking others’ lands and imposing and legitimizing European cultural institutions on non-European peoples. Because non-Europeans have color pigmentation in their skin and Europeans do not, it was necessary for Europeans to construct “the white race” as the model of humanity in order to justify their right to dominate and rule — through militarism, which is martial enforcement of genocidal policies against a subjugated race. (Undoing Racism by Ronald Chisom and Michael Washington)

Racism is a political construct formed by white people in this country to:

Keep poor whites — did you get that — Poor whites separate from other Poor people, so the poor as a collective would not rebel and organize against the racist institutions and systems and undo them.

Keep Africans, Asians, Latinos and Native Americans oppressed and thus fighting with each other because they have internalized their racial oppression where they see themselves as inferior and whites see themselves as superior because of the system in place.

To keep the poor whites from organizing with poor people of color, the “the white race” was constructed and one year later “the perception of the promise of privilege” legalized for all whites.

This became the norm. Not healthy and life-giving, but a disease.

Some history:

In the 1600’s, when lands that we know belong only to God were being colonized and stolen from the Native Americans living on the land, and at the same time the slave trade began, did you know that intentional categories for race were formed.

Caucasoid for White from the Caucasian Mountains in Russia
Mongoloid for Asian from the Mongolian area in Asia
Australoid for Native and Latino from mountains near these people
Negroid for African

Notice that only Negroid is not a place.

In fact in Latin and Greek, Negroid comes from the word for a color, black.
So, the very label placed on Africans by “the white race” from the 1600’s (long before you and I were even born) was to dehumanize all African peoples during the time of the European enslavement of Africans.

You may ask, Pastor, “What does this have to do with God, humanity, creation and the relationship between them?”

EVERYTHING!

For just as God, through Miriam, Aaron and Moses brought the people through the Exodus — out of the oppressed system of Pharaoh’s empire, so too God works through you and me and creation here at Bethany to bring ourselves and all the people through an Exodus in the United States — out of the oppressed system of racism.

How do I intuitively know this in my heart that beats like that of a drumbeat?

Human beings have a knack for forgetting.

Forgetting God is love.

Have you forgotten our Stillpoint which holds us as different people together in community?

Let me remind you:
God is love and thus, you and I (and all people) are born in love, by love, for love with the freedom to not love.

God brought the people out of bondage and slavery and into the wilderness and after forty years of Wilderness School when the people reached the Promised Land — the people forget what God did.

Shortly after they forget the history — the people now in power construct another hierarchy of people, from which they had been earlier been freed from. This time — again with kings, priests and the military.

And when their own man-made kingdom collapsed, when their own empire fell, when the people would not listen to the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Micah and Amos and more — the people experienced exile.

An exile that the people needed to see was the consequence of their own stupidity and forgetfulness of the ways of God.

But God — because God is love and cannot stop loving — does not forsake the people.

And from God’s love, the people started making a paradigm shift.

They started creating new songs and new stories including Genesis 1 – the wonderful story — countercultural to the Babylonian story they were taught — the story of God — reminding the partner people of God that the liberator God, not Marduk, was the true creator of heaven and earth.

And from the waters of Babylon, even though the people first sat there and wept, hung their harps in despair and cried, “How can we sing God’s song in a strange land?” — God, working through people as God works through you and me, created a way — another Exodus — for all the people.

[Exercise with Nine Dots - ask church to connect all nine dots with four straight lines without lifting your pencil]

. . .
. . .
. . .

[A tween raises hand and comes up and shares with the Bethany congregation how it is possible by drawing outside the lines.]

The only way you and I can do this is to think and draw outside the box/walls of the imaginary box which is not even there, but which we have been socialized to color inside the lines — to stay in line, to stay inside our box.

How can we sing God’s song, tell God’s story in a strange land?

By making a Paradigm Shift!
To shift from what our society has socialized us to see as normal — but is far from healthy and life-giving for us and the generations that will follow after us.

As Bethany seeks to be both multi-racial and anti-racist, which I know is possible — let the church follow the teachings of Jesus and what Jesus had faith in, which at the center of the prayer he taught his disciples is Manna and Mercy.

On this Worldwide Communion Sunday, let Bethany Church break bread with churches around the world — a symbol of Jesus’ love and that of all people needing to have access.

As Bethany gathers to be reminded that for all people — God is love and we are born in love, by love, for love and yet with the freedom not to love —- let Bethany move out of any fear, guilt or despair by becoming multi-racial and anti-racist. It may start out with small and then grow, so that the world hears this community, seeking to follow Jesus and what Jesus had faith in — sing God’s Song and tell of God’s Story in this strange land! How can Bethany not?!