THE CRIES OF RACHEL
The events of this week are making
it hard for me to face Thanksgiving. It’s hard to settle into the warmth of
hearth and home when the world outside is filled with violence and injustice. I’m
finding it hard to shut out the cries around me.
Seeking comfort, I found myself turning to a most
unusual scripture for this time of year. It is one which is read right after
Christmas day. And I mean right after. We barely say the Amen on “Joy to the
World” before we encounter a most disturbing historical account of violence found in Matthew 2:13-23.
You see, Herod, who was a front man
of the Roman empire, ruled over Israel. When Jesus was born, word got to him
that others were calling Jesus the King of the Jews. He sent wise men to see
the boy. Herod told them it was so that he could honor him, but really he
wanted to know his whereabouts so he could kill him. The wise men, after laying
their gifts before Jesus, are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and
Jesus’ father Joseph is always warned in a dream to flee with his family. When
Herod learned that he had been outwitted, he ordered the murder of every boy in
Bethlehem under the age of two. This is known as the Slaughter of the Innocence
and fulfills the prophesy of Jeremiah:
A
sound was heard in Ramah,
weeping
and much lament.
Rachel weeping for her children,
Rachel
refusing all comfort,
Her children gone, dead and buried
Rachel,
weeping for her children who are gone, dead and buried.
There
is a steady drumbeat of violence in this country. A war has been declared in
America, and the enemy has been labeled by skin color. A war specifically being
waged against black and brown men. Ferguson
or Fruitvale, New York City or St. Louis or Los Angeles or San Jose. Too many
black and brown men have lost their lives by the very ones who are supposed to
protect them.
I
can’t get out of my head the sound of Rachel, Rachel who will not be consoled.
Rachel who is weeping for her children who are gone, dead and buried.
How
can we comfort Rachel? How can we push back on the pandemic of racism in this
country, one that was literally written into the constitution? Earlier this
fall, Glide’s Associate Pastor Angela Brown and I had a meeting in Little Rock,
and we stopped into Central High School, a National Historic site where the
Little Rock 9 broke down a color barrier and ignited a fire storm, simply by
going to school. It was at the visitors center that highlights of the
Constitution were presented, a reminder that from the very birth of this
nation, racial inequality was the law of the land.
Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed this fact out in 1967, and his words are
hauntingly true nearly 50 years later: “When the constitution was written, it
declared that the Negro was 60% of a white person. Today, another formula seems to declare that
he is merely 50% of a person. Of all the
good things in life he has approximately one-half those of whites, of the bad
he has twice those of whites.”
There continues to be a racial
divide in this country, and it remains just as deadly as it did from the start
of this country. If you don’t believe it, if you no
longer pay any mind when another young man of color is gunned down, just listen
for the cries of Rachel, for her sobbing is all around us.
This is specifically for my white brothers and sisters: because for many of us who live comfortably and even
blindly with the privilege that comes from our white skin, too many of us want
to stick our head in the sand and pretend that we live in a post-racial
society. We hear our black and brown brothers and sisters tell of their racist
treatment and we often interrupt and say, “It’s not really like that any more.”
Or “You should see what happened to me.”
Thank God that prophets like
Jeremiah, who help us remove our blindfolds and unstop our ears, still are
walking around in our day and age, because we need them more now than ever
before. Hear these words from one of the great prophets of our day:
Racism isn’t an inconvenient social
construct. It is a deadly way to control others. Herod killed
the babies of Bethlehem because he was afraid, afraid of Jesus’ power. So he
killed innocent ones to keep himself feeling safe.
When we refuse to hear the truth of
the lived experiences of others, we become Herods, exercising power over others
as a way to keep ourselves safe. And as a result, there are a lot of Rachels weeping over the deaths of their babies.
I will never forget the day I
realized that my walk in the world was different from that of my friend of
color. In college, one of my professors (yes, one) was black. Every day he came to class dressed
so dapper. In an era when jeans and flannel shirts were the rule, he stood out
by his three piece suits and hat, even though he was only about 5 years older
than the students he taught. He told us about how not once, not twice, but
nearly every time he drove through the town to get to work, he would be pulled
over by police. This wasn’t Birmingham in the 50’s, it was New Jersey in the
70’s. And whether with a colleague or his children, he would suffer the
indignity of the police asking him to step out of the car for questioning. His
crime? Guilty while driving black.
This busted open my world. Made me
see my own privilege, and began my commitment to be an ally in the dismantling
of racism.
But we still have so much work to do
and it will require all of us.
From Birmingham of the 50s to New
Jersey in the 70s to San Francisco in the 2010s. Just a few months ago I was
nearly to the door of Glide when a taxi pulled out and one of our church's matriarchs--who is black--literally fell into
my arms sobbing. I asked what was wrong and she said she had been standing at
the curb at the Ferry Building for 45 minutes, trying to hail a cab. Literally
hundreds passed her by without stopping. Finally, a white man noticed what was
going on and asked if he could help. He raised his hand and immediately a cab
stopped.
Rachel is weeping. Rachel is
weeping.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg had an interesting perspective on
why the struggle for racial equality seems never ending while the gains in
lgbtq equality have seem to leap forward in a relatively short time span. She
said:
“Once [gay] people began to say who they were, you found that it
was your next-door neighbor or it could be your child, and we found people we
admired,” she said.
“That understanding still doesn’t exist with race; you still have separation of
neighborhoods, where the races are not mixed. It’s the familiarity with people
who are gay that still doesn’t exist for race and will remain that way for a
long time as long as where we live remains divided.”
Some have noted that while once the most segregated time in
America is no longer Sundays at 11am, but it is noon lunch hour at work.
Proximity doesn’t breed contempt, distance does. Proximity breeds a familiarity that gives birth to empathy.
How can we comfort the
crying Rachels and make a world of opportunity and life for all people,
including black and brown young men?
I was speaking at a conference recently, and one of the other speakers was from Zimbabwe. He told me about the
traditional greeting in Zimbabwe which he says has no real English (and I would
dare say American) equivalent. It is called “Chabadza” and it is always said
when you pass someone and it means something like, “Hello, can I help?”
Unlike here, where we say without
even meaning it, “Hi, how are you?” in Zimbabwe they mean it. He said to me, “When we say Chabadza, what we mean is
‘Greetings! Let me stop a while and help you with what you’re doing. We will
work together and we’ll talk a bit and then I’ll be on my way.”
Chabadza is the sharing of a moment,
a participation in the task at hand and an acknowledgment that life is best
when it is shared.
Life is best when it is shared. As
long as we live in silos that separate us by our differences, we don’t get to
enjoy the best of life and in fact life turns deadly for those who are feared
because of differences.
What would it mean for you to practice chabadza in
your office, in your community, as you walk down the street. How would your
living change if you took the time to look others in the eye and say "Let me
join you, side by side work with you, so I can learn from you and make your
walk in this world a bit easier."
This is what it means to comfort the
Rachels who are crying. This is our task as we work for racial equality. This
is what we must do to stop the flow of blood of our young men. This is what is
required of us as children of God.
Chabadza. Hello. How can I help?
