A Messy Way Forward

Our country is in a mess. We are in great need of healing, of reconciliation.

A messy, humbling, slow way forward seems to be what the Holy Spirit is whispering in my ear – softly, but persistently. It is the way of confession, it is the way of repentance; it is the way of seeking forgiveness; it is the way of considering others over myself.

Some in the church will say, “I am not racist. I am not a bigot. None of my ancestors ever owned a slave. Why should I seek forgiveness?”

For my answer, I turn to the example of three Old Testament men of faith: Jeremiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah. In Jeremiah 14:20 the prophet prays, “We acknowledge our wickedness, LORD, and the guilt of our ancestors; we have indeed sinned against you.” Ezra prays in Ezra 9:6, “…and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. ⁷ Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt.”

I am most moved by the example and words of Nehemiah.

“When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.  I said, “I beseech You, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, let Your ear now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. (Nehemiah 1:4-7 – emphasis mine)

I am moved, because Nehemiah was not actively disobeying. He was doing good things. But he identified with the sin of his people. He took ownership of not just his own errors, but the errors of his ancestors, the sin of his nation.

The greatest example of this identification with sinners is our Lord Himself. He took on flesh and carried my sin to the cross. He paid the price for my sin. He brought about reconciliation.

Until there is reconciliation in the church, there will never be reconciliation in our country. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (emphasis mine) I need to humble myself. I need to seek God’s face. I need to turn from my wicked ways.

And so here is my way forward.

1) I will choose to identify with the sins of my ancestors. I will not try to justify the wrongs. I will seek God’s forgiveness for this sin.

2) I will not ignore or be quick to justify the offensive words and actions of my family, friends, and acquaintances, but I will gently point out the things that are hurtful toward others.

3) I will stop myself when I start to think, “Just get over it. You shouldn’t feel that way.”

And finally,

4) I will give my friends of other ethnicities permission to point out to me the things I say or do that are offensive. And when they do, I will not justify myself, but I will ask forgiveness.

I am challenging all of my friends to do the same. This straight crooked path is messy, but God promises that He will hear from heaven, forgive our sin, and heal our land.

Get Off My Foot! or Travon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the Sins of a Nation

This is part one of a two-part blog. This is probably the most difficult topic I have ever attempted to tackle. This is probably going to offend many of my friends.

This was my post on Facebook yesterday.

Wanting to stay out of controversy, but the Holy Spirit is not letting me rest. Blog coming this evening, but in the meantime, just let me say...I am sorry. We taught our kids that when you step on someone's foot, whether you meant to or not, you say, "I am sorry." And if you didn't know you did it, you still say, "I am sorry." The offended person knows that they have been offended. They don't need statistics saying that more boys step on other boys' feet than boys step on girls' feet..." or "Well studies show that I don't step on your feet as much as I did before." They just need you to listen, feel remorse and say, "I am truly sorry." And so...I hear you, I am truly sorry, please forgive me."

I am a day late in getting to this blog, but here we go.

I am a WASP. I married a WASP. I am a homeschooling, stay-at-home grandmother. I align myself most closely with the Libertarian party, so you know I did not vote for President Obama.

But most importantly, I am a Christian. The United States is my temporary home. My citizenship is in heaven, and I am choosing, as best I can, to live according to the norms of my real home, and right now that means stepping out of my comfort zone and taking a stand for what is right.

When President Obama first took office, he went on what conservatives called, “The Apology Tour.” While I disagree with many of the president’s policies, I think he was right in asking forgiveness for our country’s past wrongs.

Romans 12:3 says, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” As white, conservative Christians, we are guilty, I am guilty, of remembering all of America’s goodness and of denying or ignoring or at best minimalizing all of our wrongs. As painful as it is to look at, I think we need to. And I know I am painting with a broad brush. Not everyone fits this narrative, but I am talking about national sins.

So here we go…

My ancestors came here and took this land from Native Americans. Why? Because they could. And not only did they take the land, they murdered, emasculated, and confined an entire people group. I do not like to teach that part of our history, and when I do I tend to say things like, they just didn’t understand, or it was the culture of the time. The bottom line is these were people who thought they were better than others. People who believed their way of life – my way of life – was superior to someone else’s.

My ancestors enslaved an entire race of people. They bought and sold other humans as though they were cattle. They separated families. They beat and murdered with the full force of the law behind them. When given an opportunity to make things right at the founding of our new nation, our founders abandoned African-Americans who fought side by side with them for independence – for freedom! At every turn we chose expediency, compromise and greed instead of righteousness, equality, and justice.

You may say, but we fought a costly civil war to pay for that injustice and we made things right. But I ask you, what did Lincoln say? In a letter to Horace Greeley he said that his personal wish was “that all men everywhere could be free.” But the gist of his letter is summed up by this, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” The emancipation proclamation was a political move, a bone thrown to abolitionists. Lincoln achieved what he wanted personally, but only because it matched what he wanted politically.

And what happened after the Civil War was disastrous - the birth of the Christian Knights of the KKK. And lest you say that is past history, I invite you to check out the following website and let these “Christian” people speak for themselves. https://sites.google.com/site/cnkrealmofky/what-we-believe

And how about the fact that while Hitler was exterminating Jews, our government refused to give asylum to Jews seeking aid? But, you counter, we did come to the aid of the Jews. When? After Pearl Harbor was bombed, when it was in our best interest to do so. And how about those interment camps for Japanese Americans? How about dropping not one, but two nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan?

None of us wants to be associated with a group of people known for its atrocities. We want to be the good guys. But we Americans are not always the good guys – especially WASPS. We WASPs want to say that racism no longer exists. We want to say that there is equality. We think the world is as fair a place for others as it is for us.

Will you walk this crooked path again with me tomorrow and ponder a way forward?