In the year-end fog of Advent I recall finding a moment to read an article on a major network’s website that was very offensive to 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-career clergy. (This includes me). The article berated the “wave” of lazy, lecherous baby boomers, who are, purportedly, flocking in droves to seminaries for MDiv degrees. The article accuses these opportunistic wanderers of irresponsibly racking up mounds of student loan debt so they can leave the stress of the corporate workplace in order to pursue cushy preacher jobs, get free housing, nominal, flexible work hours, and free vacation expense accounts masked as retreats - in other words, retire comfortably. As soon as I read most of the article, I thought of my 60-plus year-old female colleague, who, after retiring from 30 years as an administrator, forged through a grueling ordination process to earn her clergy credentials. She confided in me that in a church of about 200 members, she had officiated 15 funerals in less than a year – essentially more than 1 per month. Another friend who had been serving a church for less than two years shared that she had done just as many in half that time.
The love, devotion and commitment required of a servant leader can take its toll, and it was not much different for Jesus Christ. My colleagues and I are not quite sweating blood, but this is a cup many of us would often like to pass and let someone else take our sip. Only a divine calling could strengthen me enough to think nothing of someone sobbing snot into my dry-clean-only clergy robe, or cry on my shoulder so uncontrollably, that I can feel their tears trickling into my inner-ear; or to go from the intensive care unit to the cancer unit after having waited an hour for someone to come back from diagnostic testing, and then heading for the dark trip alone back to the Center City parking garage.
Serving in a cross-racial or cross-cultural appointment is an added layer of confluence that should be the least of our issues, but unfortunately, it’s not. There are often some triumphs and victories that propel us forward through the work of the Holy Spirit. I recall my Korean colleague who could not get a dying black parishioner to look at her during a hospital visit, but melted into a smile when she began to sing. And I have learned that an elderly parishioner, who has made racist comments, could care less how dark or kinky-haired I am when I am standing by their hospital bed on Christmas Eve night reading Luke 2. I’ve learned that the parishioner who describes me as the “colored” pastor is quick to request that I sing an a cappella spiritual at the graveside when they die.
Suffering and mourning are no better relieved when the skin of hands that are joined in prayer or the cheeks that touch in comfort, are the same color. And no baby boomers in their right (or wrong) minds would voluntarily spend the latter of their natural days suffering and mourning on a regular and unpredictable basis with, for the most part, social and cultural strangers. It’s hardly a prudent or desirable retirement plan. It’s a high calling for a peculiar people.
For the most part the reason we are intentional about cross-racial appointments is to eliminate prejudice, to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our lives in ways that lessen our being “cultural and social strangers,” to take up the cherished “cross” of engaging in the internal and outer dialogue that exposes both our deep love for one another as well as the and bare-faced bigotry that plagues the human heart.
ReplyDeleteI once heard the legendary Rev. Joshua Licorish speak about preachers deserving “battle pay” because of the added strain of racial conflict in the Church. When he was reminded of the victory of staff offices finally being integrated, he calmly raised the bar by saying that he was expecting people who looked like him; he was jet black in color. Those first staffers were “safe” and acceptable because they were pale or caramel-colored African Americans. In the same vein, I acknowledged to a group of friends that I believed some were shocked to see me – a big black woman – when I entered a room filled with white people. Someone questioned why I referred to myself as BIG when I am closer to average in size. It was you, Joyce, who quickly recognized its reference to the idea that those we fear become larger than life. We often see this concept played out in the news media when criminals, initially claiming to be victims, describe their assailants with grotesquely enlarged or darkened features of someone whose ethnicity is not their own. This, of course, capitalizes on the fear factor….which puts us at great risk.
The hardest part about being in a cross-racial appointment is contending with each other’s fears. My countenance falls, my imagination brims, and my blood curdles when I drive past the Confederate flag a few miles from the church. A lay woman carefully explained that the overt contempt and disdain three women showed for me although unnamed and inexplicable had nothing to do with my being b-b-b-b-black. She could not even say the word. ” Another person said the verbally assaulting and withdrawn persons never acted like this until I came on board, and it does not need to be discussed. I only need to forget their behavior, forgive and show more love.
It is always a joy to hear those outside the clique able to name what I observe in my reality. It keeps me from despairing, feeling so alone as I work, swimming against the tide. Though in the minority, there are those who can candidly recognize those who have issues which they fail to articulate, clouding Truth and raising suspicions while incessantly resisting my “authority” – as a woman? As a Black? God knows. Some share past history in whispers, knowing the reality of how they could be punished with ridicule and indifference. Still, I am confident that with gentle determination and care, we can surrender moment by precious moment, to an extraordinarily faithful transformation. I continue to believe that we can eat of the fruit of the Promised Land, filled with racial tolerance.
Beautifully written and lovingly shared. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe final comment from anonymous above about the Promised Land filled with racial tolerance reminds me of a conversation I had with an evangelical white man who has adopted two young boys from Ethiopia. He mentioned that God calls us not simply to TOLERATE racial difference, but to DELIGHT in difference. Joyce, do you think that's true or do you think that that is privilege talking?
ReplyDeleteBryan Langlands
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ReplyDeleteMy son-in-law was furious when I recently told him about a white female friend, whom I had not seen in a while, who kept rubbing my kinky hair in excitement to show how much she liked my new, short haircut. He thought it was disrespectful and demeaning.
ReplyDeleteAs annoying as it was to have another grown-up rub my head 3 or 4 times during the course of a public conversation, I guess I accepted as “delighting in difference, which, now that I think of it, took some level of tolerance.
On the other hand, I'm recalling some of the many curly or nappy-headed black and brown children of mixed-race marriages or adoptions, whose parents chose to keep the child's hair closely cropped, rather than actually learning how to take care of it. These parents would often complain to me, "I don't know what to do 'this stuff'". No wonder - we had literally decades of exclusively seeing white people shampoo and coif their hair on TV. Only God and we, ourselves knew how in the world black folks took care of their hair.
As long as we understand that delight must eventually move beyond food, fabric and festivities, and get around to the messy, personal, bodily stuff, like hair grease and pomade, then we start to move away from the many traps of privilege.