A (Provisional) Commitment to Pursuing Racial Justice

At Hodge Hill Church we have, for a few years, been on an intentional journey together of pursuing racial justice. It is now one of our four key priorities (alongside 'deepening ecological responsibility', 'supporting and nurturing each other in faith and daily life' and 'developing our missional engagement with our neighbours') for us as a church.

Since January 2022, a group (of about half our congregation) have been reading together Azariah France-Williams' book Ghost Ship: Institutional Racism and the Church of England, and gathering together monthly to share what it is stirring in us (feelings, thoughts, questions, prompts to action, etc).

This October, as we have focused the attention of our worship on racial justice (as we have done every October for the last few years), we decided we wanted to offer an 'Act of Commitment' - to conclude the month, but also to be very clear together that the end of October is not the end of anything! So what follows is intentionally, explicitly 'provisional'. Many of the words in it have been offered by individual members of the Ghost Ship reading group and represent their own commitments at this stage. Some of our members are (racialized as) black, some are (racialized as) white - and, as we state in the introduction, we recognise that the impact of racism on each of us, and each of our callings to respond, are particular to each of us.

As well as being provisional, we recognise that what this commitment is incomplete, and imperfect. We welcome reflections on it from those who read it - to add to, question, deepen, nuance and enlarge what is here.

Beloved children of God,
as a church community
we have committed together
to a journey of pursuing racial justice:
in our own lives and relationships,
in our church community,
and in our world.

We rejoice in our diversity as a community,
a sign of the abundant goodness of God's creation,
and the different and beautiful gifts
God has given each one of us.

We recognise that racism divides us,
that it hurts all of us, but in different ways,
and that we have different callings
in the work of justice and repair.

We recognise that we follow in the footsteps of many who have gone before us
on this path,
and that our own journey has barely begun.

And so for today,
however provisionally,
however imperfect,
here are our commitments,
to God and to each other:

* * *

I will not allow the painful reality of racism to be whitewashed.

Where parts of my identity allow me the privilege of not having to think about them,
I will keep alert and questioning.

I will keep going, with the help of God.
I will ask for time when I need it.

I will not pretend there are easy solutions.

I will not jump hastily to token gestures.

I will keep going, with the help of God.
I will ask for time when I need it.

I will widen the horizons
of what I read, watch and listen to.

I will keep reflecting, but my reflection
will not stop me from acting.

I will keep going, with the help of God.
I will ask for time when I need it.

I will not expect others to take on
the work that is mine to do.

I will not take on myself
the work that is for others to do.

I will keep going, with the help of God.
I will ask for time when I need it.

We will remember that racism
is both personal and structural.

We will look outwards
and we will also look inwards.

Wherever we see racism,
we will try our best to call it out.

We will make space,
in our worship and conversations,
for the widest breadth of voices
and the deepest depths of our feelings.

We will try our best to be kind to each other.

When things get uncomfortable,
we will persevere.

We will go deeper together,
with the Spirit’s leading.

We will remember the urgency of the task,
and how much more there is to be done.

We will keep going, with the help of God.

We will ask for time when we need it.

This we commit to today.
May it be so. Amen.

The village crisis and the wise woman

This is a story I've used in countless places and contexts now. It seems to be immensely generative in drawing out wisdom from those who hear it. I learnt it from Cormac Russell, who's been a wise teacher and mentor to me for many years. I think Cormac traced its roots back to West Africa. But as with many oral traditions, there may have been some things changed and forgotten along the way. I was asked recently for a text of it, so here's how I'm (currently!) remembering it...

A village had been hit by a crisis that was threatening to overwhelm it.

The village elders got together, and decided that what they needed to do was go and ask the wise woman for help. So a delegation went to the wise woman's hut, a short walk from the village itself, and asked her to help them. She agreed, and told the elders to gather the whole village together under the big tree. And so the elders hurried back, and did as she told them.

When the wise woman arrived, she looked around at all the villagers, and then spoke. "I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know," she said to them. "Do you know what I'm going to tell you?"

The villagers were a bit puzzled, and one by one they shook their heads and said, "No. No, we don't know. That's why we asked you to come here."

"Well," said the wise woman, "then I'm afraid I can't help you." And she went away.

The elders were frustrated. This was not what they'd been expecting. They put their heads together again, and decided to try again. So the delegation went back to the wise woman, and asked her to please come back and address the village again. "We really need your help," they told her. And so she agreed.

Again, the elders went back, and gathered the whole village together under the big tree, and the wise woman came and spoke to them again. "I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know," she said again. "Do you know what I'm going to tell you?"

Now this time, the elders had given the villagers a stern talking to. "This time, give her the right answer!" they had said. And although the villagers were still pretty sure the answer was "No", they guessed the right answer must be "Yes". So with a mixture of shakes and nods of their heads, they replied to the wise woman, "Yes. Yes we do!"

"Well in that case," replied the wise woman, "you don't need my help!" And she went away again.

By this time, the elders were pulling out whatever remained of their hair. The crisis was big, and urgent, and they desperately needed help. What were they going to do?

Eventually, one of them came up with a cunning plan. And a third time, the delegation went back to beg the wise woman to return to the village. And a third time she agreed. And a third time she came and addressed the whole village under the big tree.

"I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know. Do you know what I'm going to tell you?"

And this time, the villagers had all been thoroughly briefed on the cunning plan. So half the village said "No". And the other half of the village said "Yes".

And the wise woman paused, and looked around, and a smile came over her face. And slowly, quietly, she spoke.

"Well in that case," she said, "listen to each other!" And she went away, and was never seen again.

I wonder what wisdom you hear in that story...

Being held: choke-holds, strongholds & cracked vessels

This is a summary of Al’s sermon on Sunday 8^th May – the day of our (Hodge Hill Church's) Annual Meeting. The readings were taken from Wil Gafney's "Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church" (Year W, Easter 4):

Acts 2:22-24, Psalm 9:9-14, 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 and Luke 7:18-23

It’s not often we get four readings to reflect on, but today there’s an important thread running through them, which I want to help us explore together: what does it mean to be ‘held’?

Being ‘held in the power of death’

Beginning with the reading from Acts chapter 2, we have a little snippet of a much longer sermon that Peter is preaching to the Jerusalem crowd at Pentecost.

“This Jesus… you crucified… but God raised him up… because it was impossible for him to be held in [death’s] power.”

Here ‘being held’ means being trapped: Jesus is literally pinned down (in crucifixion), sealed up (in the tomb). Death is all-encompassing, overwhelming, a brutal, vice-like choke-hold.

We have seen and heard of far too much of this kind of deathly holding. People trapped in war zones, hiding for fear of their lives. People fleeing death and destruction, seeking safe refuge, and instead being locked up in detention centres. The choke-hold on a black man’s neck, squeezing out the last gasps of breath. The hold of the slave ship, stripping human beings of their dignity, reducing them to mere cargo to be transported, or thrown overboard if deemed ‘dead weight’.

We have known personally the choke-hold of grief at the loss of a loved one. We have all lived through the confinement of ‘lockdown’, with its restrictions on what we can and can’t do, the way it cut us off from each other, trapped inside those who were ill or physically most vulnerable, and trapped us too in the tensions of impossible decision-making: what should we do, and what shouldn’t we?

And we know too, if we look a little further within ourselves, how fears and anxieties about the future can hold us in their grasp. When we fear change, feel like we have to defend our own agenda; when we’re tempted to dig our heels in, stick up our defences, or return to what’s most familiar to us, just as Peter did, going out fishing after the overwhelming tragedy of the crucifixion.

Yes, we know something about being held in the power of death. And to this grim reality, Peter preaches resurrection as liberation: the stone rolled away, the tomb broken open, the scarred, breath-less body raised up and breathing with new life. This is the good news of Easter: that the power of death could not hold Jesus, doesn’t have the last word, isn’t the end of the story – not for Jesus, and not for us and our world either.

Being held – as loving safety

In Psalm 9, we hear a totally different kind of ‘being held’:

‘The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.’

Here, when everything feels like it’s falling apart, when we feel like our life is in free fall, it is God who holds us together, upholds us in her strong and gentle hands.

I’m sure we’ve all known something of this kind of ‘holding’ too. In our times of crisis or grief, fear or despair, we’ve been held. Held by God, and often held too by friends, family, neighbours, our church community. Held in love, and care, and prayer. And this kind of holding, too, we’ve known through the hardest times of the COVID pandemic. We’ve known ourselves as a church community here, held together as we’ve cared for one another, on the phone or on the doorstep; as we’ve prayed, together, apart; as we’ve held one another in prayer even when we’ve not been able to see each other, or hold each other in a great big hug. And in all of this holding, we’ve been held by our loving God.

But being held by God is the complete opposite of being trapped, stuck, choked. Being held by God means being free, it goes hand in hand with seeking God – a bit like (if you can imagine it) playing hide and seek with a ‘hider’ who both manages to be mysteriously hidden, and yet also sticks tight by your side the whole time…! And so as God has held us together through the challenges of the past couple of years, God’s Spirit has also led us on a journey, of ‘going deeper’ into the mysterious life of God, through our Trees of Life resources, and through everything else that we’ve encountered and discovered and learnt along the way.

Being sent – with good news

The gospel reading from Luke talks not of being held, but of being sent. John’s disciples come to ask Jesus if he’s the one they’ve been waiting for, and Jesus responds not with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but with a question back to them: “what have you seen and heard? Go and tell John those things.” When we seek God, when we open our eyes and ears and hearts to what might be happening around us, we have caught glimpses of the kin-dom of God springing up, we’ve sensed the Spirit on the move, the good, resurrection news of life and love and liberation taking flesh.

And over the past couple of years, we’ve seen and heard plenty of that: in our own lives, within our church community, in our wider neighbourhoods and the wider world. Very often, these things have been small, and fragile; they’ve come slowly, not quickly. Maybe some of the glimpses have been fleeting, and others longer lasting. But just reflect, for a moment, on where you’ve seen and heard life and love and liberation happening in or around you…

 

So Jesus sends John’s disciples to ‘go and tell’ what they’ve heard and seen. And he sends us too. To tell the stories, share the glimpses, with others. This is what has sometimes been called ‘evangelism’ – however misused that word has often been. Discovering the good news together. Sharing what we’ve seen and heard, and naming it as the movement of the Spirit, the springing up of God’s kin-dom, the taking-flesh among us of Jesus’ resurrection life. And we share this treasure, not because it’s good news for some ‘them’ out there – but because it’s good news for all of us, together. We share in places like the Pantry and the coffee morning, the Open Door drop-in and the Community Iftar, not because we just want to help others, but because we know, as the saying goes, that my liberation is bound up with yours – that what is good news for you, is good news for me, that when we share together, we are all fed.

A treasure held – in ‘clay jars’

The golden thread running through our readings finishes with the 2^nd letter to the Corinthians:

‘we have this treasure in clay jars… so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.’

Sharing the good news of life and love and liberation is absolutely not a ‘we’re alright now we’ve met Jesus’ kind of story. The treasure we’ve discovered, received, is rarely big and shiny, robust and ‘successful’. And that, thank God, is not what we’re called to be, either – whether individually, or collectively as a church community.

If we’re called to be ‘signs of God’s kin-dom’, then we’re called to be imperfect, broken signs – what Paul here calls ‘clay jars’. Because we’re human, and limited, and fragile, and cracked. Because our flesh, our bodies, are fragile – and so are our lives. And that is how God made us. And God has called us ‘good, very good’.

We’re not called to be a big, shiny, robust and ‘successful’ community. We’re called to be a community that is in touch with our wounds, our scars. A community which is honest about who we are, and how the world is, in all its messiness. And that it’s only ever in the midst of all of that, that God’s light and life and love and liberation comes to dwell. In the midst of all of that, in us.

Many of you have seen the cracked communion dish, that we’ve used every Sunday since the beginning of Lent this year. It was broken in the break-ins last December, and has been mended by an artist who used the Japanese kintsugi method: not sealing up the cracks so that they can’t be seen, returning the dish to how it was before; but filling the cracks with shiny gold cement, making them more visible, not less, bringing out a new beauty in the dish that it didn’t have before, and that it can only have because of the cracks. The communion dish is a symbol of who we are, and who we’re called to be, each of us, and as a church community together.

I want to finish with some words from the Jewish song-writer Leonard Cohen:

            Ring the bells that sill can ring
            Forget your perfect offering
            There is a crack, a crack in everything
            That’s how the light gets in

(from Leonard Cohen, ‘Anthem’)