‘Couple reaching up’, Evelyn Williams
Isaiah 59:1-15 (The Message version)
1-8 Look!
Listen!
God’s
arm is not amputated—he can still save.
God’s
ears are not stopped up—he can still hear.
There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you.
Your wrongheaded lives caused the split between you
and God.
Your sins got between you so that he doesn’t hear.
Your hands are drenched in blood,
your fingers dripping with guilt,
Your lips smeared with lies,
your tongue swollen from muttering obscenities.
No one speaks up for the right,
no one deals fairly.
They trust in illusion, they tell lies,
they get pregnant with mischief and have
sin-babies.
They hatch snake eggs and weave spider webs.
Eat an egg and die; break an egg and get a snake!
The spider webs are no good for shirts or shawls.
No one can wear these weavings!
They weave wickedness,
they hatch violence.
They compete in the race to do evil
and run to be the first to murder.
They plan and plot evil, think and breathe evil,
and leave a trail of wrecked lives behind them.
They know nothing about peace
and less than nothing about justice.
They make tortuously twisted roads.
No peace for the wretch who walks down those roads!
9-11 Which
means that we’re a far cry from fair dealing,
and we’re not even close to right living.
We long for light but sink into darkness,
long for brightness but stumble through the night.
Like the blind, we inch along a wall,
groping eyeless in the dark.
We shuffle our way in broad daylight,
like the dead, but somehow walking.
We’re no better off than bears, groaning,
and no worse off than doves, moaning.
We look for justice—not a sign of it;
for salvation—not so much as a hint.
12-15 Our
wrongdoings pile up before you, God,
our sins stand up and accuse us.
Our wrongdoings stare us down;
we know in detail what we’ve done:
Mocking and denying God,
not following our God,
Spreading false rumours, inciting sedition,
pregnant with lies, muttering malice.
Justice is beaten back,
Righteousness is banished to the side-lines,
Truth staggers down the street,
Honesty is nowhere to be found,
Good is missing in action.
Anyone renouncing evil is beaten and robbed.
A
‘cutting’ of tree wisdom: Strange Fruit (Genny Tunbridge)
The height, shape and strength of trees have allowed humans
to put them to deadly use. Dule trees (trees of sorrow) were used for centuries
in Britain as gallows for public hangings. British colonial forces in India in
the 19th century repeatedly used banyan and peepul trees (sacred to
Hindus, Buddhists and Jains) for mass hangings of rebels.[1]
In the United States, in the 19th and early 20th
centuries, lynching (mostly by hanging from trees), became commonplace as a
form of extrajudicial murder often condoned by the authorities; most victims,
especially after the emancipation of slaves, were African Americans.
Photographs were often taken of these horrific events; one such photo, of the
1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana, prompted
Jewish-American songwriter and unionist Abel Meeropol to write the song
‘Strange Fruit’, recorded most notably by Billie Holiday. Her performance
conveys the shocking images with searing, haunting power which “leave[s] both
the singer and the audience no place to hide.”[2]
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop[3]
Introduction to the theme (Al Barrett)
We often think of ‘confession’ is an individual thing –
private, even. The small, curtained boxes called ‘confessionals’ reinforce that
idea. But even when we ‘confess our sins’ in Sunday services of ‘public
worship’, it’s very rare that we name out loud what those ‘sins’ might be. A
lot of that is linked to the destructive dynamics of shame that Sally explored
for us a few weeks ago – if other people (even some of our nearest and dearest)
knew some of the things we’ve done in our worst moments, they would look at us
with horror or disgust, and we’d never be able to look at them in the eye
again.
As someone whose ministry includes listening confidentially
to people sharing some of their deepest, most secret truths, and who has also
been on the confessing end of what Anglicans call ‘the sacrament of
reconciliation’, I can testify to the liberating power of being able to speak
out loud those things which weigh heavy on our hearts, and to hear from another
(just as fallible) human being that we are held in God’s love and forgiveness.
But those spaces for being ‘heard to speech’ are safe for us to be fearlessly
honest precisely because we know that what we say in them will not be made
public.
What this week’s reading from Isaiah 59 points us to, is the
possibility, and in fact the necessity, of discovering just such a fearless
honesty in public: not for us as individuals, but for us as a community
– both as a church, and as a society. As we’ve already explored in the first
two weeks of this season focusing on Black History and Racial Justice, racism
goes deep into our history as a nation, and deep into the history of the
Christian Church – whether Anglican or Reformed. And those histories are still
working out their legacy in the present: through the ‘hostile environment’ to
immigrants and those seeking asylum, through the systemic disadvantaging and
devaluing of, and discrimination and violence against, people of colour in our
society, and through the racially-biased inequalities of power and voice in both
nation and church. All this needs confessing, bringing into the open, examining
under the spotlight and before God – as together we seek ways of bringing
change, and living differently. I wonder where we might find ourselves in
Isaiah’s prayer of confession today?
***
UPDATE 7/10/20: Yesterday the independent inquiry (IICSA) into safeguarding in the Church of England was published, detailing hundreds of cases of over the years where children and adults have been abused by clergy and other people in positions of power in the Church, and where repeatedly those survivors have been ignored or silenced, their disclosures covered up, and their abusers protected by the institutions of the Church. Although this is a broader issue than race – including also imbalances of power that come with differences of class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, and position or status – in a week focusing on ‘acknowledging collective sin’ these systemic failures can’t go unmentioned. Both safeguarding failures, and racism, are about both an imbalance of power and an abuse of that imbalance of power – and both demand of us all (and especially any of us in positions of privilege, power, authority or oversight) public, collective acknowledgment, repentance, and systemic change – at all levels.
Reflection:
faith and faithfulness (Revd Dr Michael Jagessar)
Michael is a URC minister, a previous Moderator of the URC
General Assembly, and is currently Mission Secretary (Europe) at the Council
for World Mission.
The
reach of racism, of racist frameworks – ideas of exceptionalism, supremacy,
whiteness – has a long, embedded, and subliminal history. Black History Month provides us
with an opportunity to highlight and celebrate the achievements and
contributions of ‘people of colour’, and in the process to unearth the latent
histories and narratives that shape our life together. The idol of whiteness
and white privilege is a primary contributing factor as to why ‘black history’
remains hidden and often erased from our consciousness. This idol was
conceived, birthed, and nurtured by human minds and hands in the Northern Hemisphere.
It governs cultural, economic, and political norms and it devours victims
through physical, psychological, and spiritual violence. It leaves a gaping
hole in our collective consciousness. Though no Church
would claim to be racist nor excluding, racism and exclusion happen in our
faith communities. Recent and current events around us underscore this fact.
One
of the easiest and default responses from the authorities, be such state or
church, is to put it down to the obnoxious behaviour of a few bad or ill-brought
up individuals. The Status Quo would have us believe this, missing the
underlying systemic issues, absolving ourselves of collective responsibility,
and thereby protecting the order of things. Idols are strong and systemic do not
wish to be confronted or challenged. It will require more than human minds and
hands. The disintegration of idols and the transformation of death into life,
must also be a matter of faith and faithfulness. Otherwise, the idol will
consume us and refashion us in its own image.
Reflect
on the story of Jesus from this perspective. This maverick Jewish Rabbi took a trip
up-stream, against the flow of such idols in his time. It took him into public
spaces where systemic evil was at work. Consider a few: the gatekeepers of organized
religion angry at him for breaking their religious rules on eating habits, for
keeping company with dodgy outcast characters, for threatening the temple
business, for breaking religious distancing and for generating a large
following. The occupying authorities (Empire’s agents) were suspicious of
anyone stirring up dissent, while keen to please the local ruling elites whom
they have co-opted! Taking on or rising-up against the status quo is always
costly. Jesus paid the ultimate price - with his life. The ‘forces’ that kill Jesus are still with
us today, causing much brokenness – pain – crucifixion - death. Organised
religion would want us to believe Jesus died for our sins. This was an
astute move to take our gaze from the fact that Jesus got sacrificed, because
of evil and for taking the side of justice rooted in love to re-claim the image
of God in each one of us. He took on the
system and their distortions of God’s dream for the whole of creation and it
was costly.
Consider our text (Isaiah 59:1-15):
would Jesus have been familiar with it,
given the ways he took on the injustices around him? If we are looking for a
passage to ‘chant down racist Babylon’ (Bob Marley and the Wailers style) then
this text is one you should not miss. I wonder why the liturgical collaborators
who arranged the Common Lectionary readings may have missed this from the 3
year cycle? In these verses you will find doxological style chants against
injustice deploying some very poetic language to take on the collective sins of
the community. Some may wish to read these verses as directed to individual
wrongdoing: this may be what those interpreters who are keen to keep oppressive
systems in place, while safeguarding their own privilege, would have us
believe!
Let me invite you to
firstly read Isaiah 59:1-15 in the version you may be most familiar with. Then
read the passage again a second time: this time using The Message version
that we’ve used here. Read slowly, allowing words, phrases, and images to grab
you, sink in and get under your skin. I can assure you, that once you have
suspended your prejudice for your familiar version of the bible, the words, images and power of these verses
will hit with real time descriptors to what is happening around us as we lament
injustice – incompetence – privilege – lies – denial of truth – inequities –
the commodification of every aspect of our lives and much more. Allow me to
highlight a few in the context of our thematic focus: wrong-headed
lives / weave wickedness / hatch violence / justice beaten back / truth
staggers down the street / honesty is nowhere to be found / good is missing in
action / anyone renouncing evil is beaten and robbed / far cry from fair
dealing / not a soul around to correct this awful
situation / God couldn’t believe
what God saw….
These images/words nail the heart of
our collective failure of walking the way of justice and taking the side of the
most vulnerable – reminding people then and today where the wrong and evil is,
and our need to wrestle with our part (consciously or unconsciously) in
allowing truth to stagger in our communities and justice beaten back by our
complicity. Isaiah is spot on then and for today: the wrongness is not with
God: it is with us – our hands and hearts are not clean; we are all dripping
with guilt; lies have taken over every part of our forked tongues; we have
surrounded ourselves with illusions as we are co-opted into the ways of
manufactured lies, and much more. Our wrongdoing piles up before the Divine:
justice and fair dealing are lacking. God cannot believe what God is seeing.
The injustice also suffocates God: as God’s faithfulness (the Hebrew word is hesed)
has been thrown-out, literally experiencing a chronic ‘housing problem’ as we
continue to deny and distort the God’s in our fellow humans and the whole of
creation.
As we continue the long-haul and
demands of cultivating and embodying anti- racist habits, Isaiah’s deploying of
a poetics of justice invites human agency (us) to dare to boldly step out and
into the way of God’s economy of flourishing life for all. Read the verses
again – listen to the whispers of the leaves – sense the root of the injustice
– feel the assuring trunk of the God in Christ and partner to uproot the evil
(starting with self). Here are emancipatory yearnings in the wailings of the
prophet: the edifice of racism must tumble so that all can breathe again and
together.
“Please, I can’t breathe”: do you remember George Floyd’s
desperate cries for help as he gasped for breath and clung to life due to the
senseless brutality of the policing machinery? Where is the system’s boot on
the neck, throat, and heartbeat of sisters and brother and where is protest and
movement to dare to ask the critical, collective, and systemic questions? Where
and how must our life together reflect change so that a fresh and new conspiring
(breathing together) may take place? What needs to be interrogated? What should
be toppled - thrown out? What new alliances are needed? How will you in your
church space and in the community create empowering ‘breathing spaces’ that
redress deficits, inequities, and foster life-flourishing spaces? How can we
live out our liturgical practices on the street with the protestors? The world
and the communities in which we are located, are waiting to believe us – to see
our words (God’s faithfulness / hesed) embodied in action! The Divine is also waiting to see ‘justice
roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’ (Amos
5:24).
Reflection (Erica Russell)
I was brought
up in a faith-loving family and the church. However, at some time, I wanted to
deviate from the family's traditional faith to one where I could have had a
water baptism (full immersion), but so as to avoid conflict I delayed it at the
time. Eventually when I left home I was given a Bible, a hymnbook and a lecture
to “remember to walk in God’s path, and to be humble if you do not have money.”
At one point early
in my adult life, during my midwifery training I was approached by the
midwifery superintendent and told there was going to be a James Bond play in
town and promotion was needed. I was selected to pose and would be photograph
in a bikini. I kept asking what would my parents think, so I declined and
regarded it as an affront. It may have counted against me. After that
conversation I saw both the hospital principal and the midwifery superintendent
were in conversation. As I walked towards them, the principal said, “So you
found a way and you got rid of them all." Both laughed. Our intermediate
exam was imminent at the time. The outcome showed all four students of colour
failed, and we were told there would be no repeat. I contacted the midwifery
body and was called by the superintendent. She wanted a verbatim account of my
complaint, then stated “I knew you would be the one to cause trouble”. With
that in mind, and to avoid undue pressure, and fear I abandoned midwifery
training.
In more
recent years, one of my neighbours asked me, “Don't you know what is happening
to you. How do you cope?” He was aware of the eggs on my window, the holes on
my house due to an air rifle, all but one of six windows got broken, urine left
on my steps while my front door was sprayed, the constant knocking on my door,
the attacks on different cars and the stoning. The last stoning I encountered
resulted in me ending up in A&E department. I often wondered what fate
awaited me in the evenings. And it goes on.
In church, I
have tended to sit at the back. Often I would arrive last and leave at the
earliest convenient time so as not to intrude on others. When I started, I sat
at the far side and was once made aware I was not the honoured guest, and that
the seat was designated for someone’s son. Thereafter I relocated and
gravitated to the near side where I sat at the rear. Until I was noticed and
made welcome by Diane. When doing my 3D course, Roy was supportive by
extracting historical church information which I needed. I was grateful. On
completion I spoke with Diane. She too was again supportive by inviting me to
join the bible reader’s rota. More recently Alannah introduced me to becoming a
server, and continued to be supportive when the process became challenging.
Clare was another person who encouraged me. She told me that there would be a
baptism which I capitalized on.
In the
negative experiences in my life I have nevertheless found sustenance and
strength. Part of that strength enabled me to pursue my life-long quest for
adult water baptism by full immersion. This is the first to have occurred in
our church in the 21st century and we hope others may become
inspired. The relief from fear, and feelings of security promote a
self-confidence that is the very father and mother of courage.
The avalanche
of racism in our world is stacking higher and higher, while God is patiently
waiting, and listening as the people are trampled over. God too is beginning to
be stifled, and choked due to lack of air. But God isn't alarmed when we hit
rock bottom. He made the rock. It seems this is the first time we’ve learnt
about Black History Month in our church. Hopefully it will start spreading its
roots towards eradicating racism in our community and our church. And,
hopefully the community can begin to support those who are being deprived of
unpolluted breath, so they can breathe freely and equally. The God of justice
will prevail.
Reflection (Tim Evans)
Thinking about writing this reflection I did a bit of pondering about
what had shaped me to get to here.
I had initially become a Christian into a theological tradition that
emphasised that sin was an individual thing that separated us from God, and
that the Good News was that Jesus had come to take the punishment for my
individual wrongdoing so I could have eternal life in a relationship with
God. We’d never talked about this idea of collective and structural
sin: we were to serve the poor but we didn't talk about what caused
poverty and injustice in the first place. When I did a Masters in
Community Education, and focusing on Anti-Oppressive Practice, we were taught
the ‘PCS’ model: that oppression happens at Personal, Cultural and Structural
levels, and therefore as youth and community workers we should work at
each of those levels. Later in life I became interested in the whole area of
liberation theology, doing our theological reflection from the 'underside'.
But somehow I have missed something important along the way and
find myself in a deeply challenging part of my life where listening
to my black sisters and brothers and seeing what's happening in the
world around me, I realise that despite study, being part of progressive
church and activist contexts and practicing youth and community work for so
long, I am only at the beginning of a journey of having my eyes truly opened
and even then I sense deeply that there is so much I am yet to understand. In
particular the systemic and collective nature of racism and privilege and my
complicity in it, even though in my conscious acts I wouldn't dream of
discriminating against someone simply because of their skin colour.
The verse that really stuck out for me was that 'we are not even close
to right living.' I did the study, read the books, tried to live
compassionately, challenged prejudicial language and actions in those I
have worked with and yet didn't do the deep inner work that's needed nor really
see the depth of the structures of privilege around me and of which I am a
part. As our reading says, when we don't address collective evil, which
racism is, when we don't proactively work for a society where all are welcome,
all are genuinely equal as people made in the image of God with the diversity
of God's creation celebrated, then justice is beaten back.
Here's my temptation - I want to fix things. I want to make it right, I
want to work for a better world, I want to change the systems and structures
and the culture that shapes them, I want to do something about what I believe
in. But Martin Luther King said he had a dream not a plan. To share in that
dream where someone is judged for the content of their character rather
than the colour of their skin it seems to me that those of us who are white
have to deeply listen, seek to recognise our privilege, stand in solidarity
with our sisters and brothers and confess our individual and collective
sin.
Our passage and our reflections over the past couple of weeks do call us
to a form of action beyond standing in solidarity and confession but not
without those things. We have to be, positively and humbly, 'anti-racist.'
There is a caution here; a sense of individual and collective guilt should not
result in us being the 'rescuers' of our black sisters and brothers but nor
does our passage today allow us to stand on the side-lines.
·
What
am I doing on a personal level to understand and challenge the bias,
assumptions, prejudice in me and how that plays out in my everyday life and
then what can I change about the way I act?
·
On a cultural
level, how am I positively working to be part of environments and ways of doing
things that are positively inclusive and speak up when they are not?
·
How
am I part of understanding, challenging, campaigning against,
awareness raising of the structural racism that exists for
example in my line of work the disproportionate numbers of black young men who
experience stop and search. Closer to home, what does this mean for me as
someone who has leadership responsibilities in a number of organisational
contexts?
All of these aspects are interlinked, and our passage moves between our
individual complicity, the cultural assumptions about the way we should do life
together, and the structures that shape that common life, as all leading to
justice being beaten back.
I can't end this reflection neatly because this is difficult and complex
not least in my own journey of understanding. Our reading points us towards
collective confession, and if we are to do that then we have to be collectively
honest. I have loved the fact that as a church community a good number of us
have been listening, reading, discovering, learning and confessing together not
just in Black History Month but in a number of ways. I have listened to the
stories of my black sisters and brothers and been deeply moved and challenged
and I thank them deeply for the prophetic gift of challenge that their stories
have been to me. I hope that they have felt that I have been someone who has
sought to listen deeply and be open to my own need to change but also someone
who wants to be part of a culture of solidarity and be part of seeing our own
collective church and community institutions better reflect the kind of world
we all seek to live in.
A prayer for this week:
Father,
bless us
as we strive to find our way to true racial reconciliation.
Open our eyes to all that goes on around us
that contributes to racial injustice.
Grant us the knowledge to understand all that we do,
both personally and as a society,
which prevents us from recognizing and defending
the dignity of all or our brothers and sisters,
and especially at this time, our brothers and sisters of colour
who are now feeling so much pain.
Grant us the grace to reflect on our own actions and inactions
that contribute to this pain.
And grant us the strength to take action to alleviate this pain
and to end racial injustice in all its forms.
Phil Chick
Questions for reflection / discussion
As I read / listened to the
readings and reflections for this week…
·
what
did I notice, or what particularly stood out for me?
·
what
did they make me wonder, or what questions am I pondering?
·
what
have they helped me realise?
·
is there anything I want to do or
change in the light of this week's topic?
Activities
/ conversation-starters
with young (and not-so-young!) people
·
Confession is an important part of how we relate
to God and each other. It’s not just about ‘saying sorry’ – it’s about
acknowledging that we have done things wrong, committing to changing how we
behave in future, and asking God to help us with that.
Think
about the things you want to confess to God and ask God to help you change.
Write or draw them, and screw up the paper. (You can share what you have
written/drawn with someone else if you want, but you don’t have to – it can
just be between you and God.)
Now set
fire to the paper, and remember that God forgives us and wants to help us to
change things that are wrong in our lives and in the world.
[REMEMBER:
ask an adult to help you set fire to your paper safely!]
·
Justice is a really important theme in the Bible.
Can you think of any situations you know about which are unjust? You might want
to look at a news website for inspiration (e.g. BBC Newsround, https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround). Make
a list, or a collage of images, of unjust situations to pray for. Are there
ways that you could help to make any of those situations more just? Ask God to
bring justice, and ask God to show you how you can contribute to justice.
·
What do you think justice means?
Have a look at the set of
pictures below…
What do you notice about the pictures?
Which do you think is most fair, and why?
Can you relate any of these pictures to some of the unjust situations you named in response to the previous question?
…or to some of the ways that you
could help make those situations more just?
[2]
Tad Hershorn, quoted in https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190415-strange-fruit-the-most-shocking-song-of-all-time
[3]
Billie Holiday’s version can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Web007rzSOI
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