Who Knew First

Anyone who has been even casually involved in a church knows that who knows something first is important. The week after I announced my departure from my first church, the main pastime was speculating as to who knew what and when did they know it.

We rank ourselves by where we stand in the hierarchy of information.  The earlier we know, the more important we feel.  And, of course, nothing boosts our self-esteem like having something shared in confidence before anybody else knows.

 When shepherds in the field receive the first public announcement of the birth of the Son of the most High God, it upsets the customary hierarchy of information (Luke 2:8-20).  Mary and Elizabeth and, presumably, Joseph were the first to know; but they were family.

The angels bring “good news of great joy" to these workers in the field.  Shepherds likely did not get a lot of joy-giving good news.  No one dreamed of growing up to be a shepherd.  It was a job you took because you could not get a better job doing anything else.  They were poor, and their lives were harsh.  People stereotyped them as dishonest; they were not permitted to testify in court.

So why are shepherds, people at the bottom of the social order, the first to hear the news that Jesus is born?

We would expect the rich and powerful to get this news first—people like the Wise Men or the governor.  We would expect the announcement to be made to the Chief Priest in the Temple maybe.  Why do shepherds receive the news first?

Remember what Mary sings after the angel announces that she will be the mother of the savior:

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)

Mary sees that the coming of Jesus will turn things upside down.  People who were discounted, ignored, and exploited, will be raised up.  The hungry will be fed, and the rich will go away empty. What Mary sings about begins with these shepherds.

These lowly shepherds are privileged by receiving the Good News before the rich and powerful find out. God notices the people who usually go unnoticed.

The angels say to the shepherds:  “You will find this baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  Manger is a nice word for a feeding trough where animals eat.  Jesus is born into the humble surroundings of poverty and is visited first by people who know that tough world well.

Not long after this, his family must escape to Egypt because of danger in his homeland. Jesus begins his life as a refugee fleeing danger.  In Jesus, God identifies—from the very beginning—with the foreigner, the stranger, the castaway.  God stands side by side with those who are unwanted and unwelcome. This is what Mary is singing about.

The angels announce “peace on earth;” and Mary sings about God repairing what is broken in our world.  But when we look around at our world, much of our world is still quite broken.  Recently, the International Criminal Court heard the case against Burma for its violence against the Rohingya people, this violence being just one of the daily outrages that fill the news.

So where is this peace and new world the angels and Mary announce? 

Something began in the first coming of Jesus, and someday God will finish it off.  Until then we live in the middle, between what has begun and what is not yet finished.  Karl Barth wrote it is this great and final hope that gives life to the small daily hopes that carry us through our days. Here and there, now and then this work God began in Jesus breaks through. Sometimes we must look hard to see it among the debris of what we have made of God’s creation.

The shepherds return to their fields “glorifying and praising God.”  Their lives are not very different.  They still spend cold nights in the fields, eat bad food, and get no respect.  They still live with smelly sheep and wear worn out shoes. Yet they glorify and praise God anyway.

Their world has not changed much, but they have.  They know that God notices people like them; they got the good news first after all.  For the shepherds of the world, this is a good omen. 

For the rest us, we could take a clue from the Wise Men, those kings from the east.  They do not get there first; but when they do, they recognize this child for who he really is and have the good sense to worship him.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister--American Baptist Churches of New York State

Dangerous People

 

Charlotte Delbo and another of the 230, in prison in France before deportation. Credit Courtesy of the Archives Departmentales du Val-deMarne, Pierre Labate, Roger Hommet and L'Association Memoire-Vivre

In the early 1940’s in Nazi occupied Paris, the Parisian police were collaborating with the Germans to round and arrest French citizens who were resisting the occupation.  Many of those arrested were placed in a prison named La Santé, in the 14th arrondisement.  La Santé was known as châteaux de la mort lente, castles of slow death.  There was “little food, no heating, and condensation trickled down the walls.  Fleas and lice were epidemic.  The chance of release was nonexistent [Caroline Moorehead, A Train in Winter—An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France, pg.105].”  Those imprisoned there were called the “dangerous element.”

Danielle, one of the imprisoned 230 women, wrote to her parents: “We sang every night.  If walking past those filthy walls, you heard singing, it was us. By ‘us’ I mean the dangerous element [pg. 107].”  Through their singing in such desperate conditions, these women showed just how dangerous they really were.  Without guns or clubs, in their resistance these determined women evidenced a power that is only available to those with the conviction they are serving some cause larger than their own lives. 

Singing in the face of abuse is a power that comes to those whose lives serve a more enduring cause than their own personal concerns and wellbeing.  It does, indeed, indicate they are dangerous.

These women were not, of course, the first determined people to sing in prison. 

Paul and Silas seemed to be a threat to the economy in Philippi, so they are beaten and thrown in jail (Acts 16).  They are praying and singing hymns in the night in their jail cell when an earthquake sets all the prisoners free. They do not flee.  The next day when the magistrates wish to send Paul and Silas away quietly, they demand a public acknowledgement of their unjust treatment; and they get it.

Paul and Silas were, indeed, dangerous to the status quo. Persecuting them had no chance of silencing them.  They had found something grander and more compelling than their own wellbeing.

People serving a larger cause are dangerous; they are hard to silence.  When we are gripped by something grander than our own security and comfort, like those women in La Santé and Paul and Silas, we become powerful. There is little to be gained by telling people like that to go home and be quiet.

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister-American Baptist Churches of New York State

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering and Anticipating

She sat in the pew absorbing the peace of the place before people started filing in for the worship service.  I saw her there and went back to speak to her.  I commented that she had seen a lot of change over the decades.  She was in her late 70’s and had been attending the church for nearly 60 years.

She smiled and said, yes; she had seen a lot of change.  She commented that she sometimes missed some things from the past.  I asked her what she missed.

She reminisced about how the ushers used to wear morning coats; she always like that.  She talked about the limousines idling along the street.  The deacons used to take the waiting chauffeurs hot coffee in the winter.  This was a glimpse into another world for her.

She quickly assured me that she still loved the church.  She said all the changes that had been made were good and necessary.

In her youth the church had been quite large and counted some wealthy, celebrated members among its ranks.  The long-term pastor was well know within the city and throughout the denomination and broader Baptist family.  The old imposing Romanesque sanctuary, which burned in 1972, was a landmark in that part of the city.  Now the congregation worshipped in the original sanctuary, more modest but quite adequate for our needs.

As the neighborhood began to become racially integrated in the early 60’s, so did the congregation.  By my arrival, the church was predominately African American.

She concluded her reminiscing with a smile of contentment and reiterated that she still loved the church; it was just the way it should be, she said.

Michael K. Girlinghouse (Embracing God’s Future without Forgetting the Past—A Conversation about Loss, Grief, and Nostalgia in Congregational Life) draws a distinction between yearning and nostalgia. Girlinghouse defines yearning as “obsessive rumination and a fixation on the past that paralyzes the mourner and makes it difficult to think about the future” (p. 104).  Congregations can yearn for a particular time in the past, a beloved pastor or program.  Pastors can also yearn for a previous church or period of ministry that was rewarding and life giving.  Yearning congregations and ministers try to recreate what they once had.  Often what they are yearning for is the web of relationships and people who filled their lives in that period.  This exercise is sometimes based on fantasies that have little basis in the past reality.  The congregation is prone to turn inward, disengage from the community, and distance themselves from the denomination (p. 105).

 Nostalgic reflection, on the other hand, “can help us see that while much has been lost, the core of who the congregation is remains” (p. 165).   We come to a deeper appreciation of the strengths of our past, which prepares us for the future. 

Nostalgia can open us up to that great cloud of witnesses the writer of Hebrews describes and help us draw from their example as we contemplate our future (p. 36).  Nostalgic memories can remind us of how our forebears adapted to changed realities and help us develop a sense of continuity with the past.  The most nostalgic memory in every congregation should be the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (p. 143-144).

Nostalgia is not about trying to reestablish or preserve the past.  Rather, is it about learning from and giving thanks for our past, which steels us to embrace the future with courage.  Nostalgia coupled with faith does not dishearten us; it makes us brave and bold.

That woman in my congregation did not want the past back.  She was thankful for it but was game for the next new thing God was going to do in us and through us.

I led worship that day heartened by the memory of all God had done in that place and anticipating the next thing God was going to do among us.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State

I Am Getting Afraid

I am not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

I am afraid for my family.  I am afraid for my community. I am afraid for my country.

Several weeks on a Sunday night my wife and I were eating our dinner at the Chinese buffet in our community.  I heard a commotion over by the cash register.  At first I thought it was an overly excited softball team after a big win.  Then I heard “do any of you have jobs,” followed by “you’re all probably on welfare.”  The increasingly loud voice shouted: “Go back where you came from.”  Some racial slurs, the most offensive kind, filled the air.

I went over to the cash register.  Eight young women of color in Muslim garb were standing there, ranging from maybe 8 years of age to 20 or so.  I asked what was going on.  The older woman told me the woman was calling them n****** and telling them to get out of the country.  She then asked me, looking a bit confused, if the woman doing the shouting realized she was in a Chinese restaurant.

I went out to the sidewalk where the restaurant manager was talking with the disruptive woman and her male companion.  I got my phone out in case I needed to call the police; she was quite agitated.  She woman looked at me and asked if I were calling the police.  I replied not yet, that I was there to provide safe passage for any of the young women who wished to leave the restaurant.  Finally the woman and her male companion walked to their SUV.  As she got into her vehicle, she shouted to no one in particular for whom she thought people should vote in the upcoming election.

Why did this scare me?  I was not surprised that there are people like her in my community.  There always have been and always will be; this is nothing new.  This is not what scared me.

I was concerned because she felt free, unprovoked by anything more than the color of these young women’s skin and their religious garb, to shout ugly and foulmouthed things at them in a crowded restaurant on a Sunday evening in my community.  She felt she had license to verbally assault strangers young enough to be her daughters and granddaughters in a restaurant without any consequences.  I found that unsettling.

Reflecting upon this, I realized what really scared me:  she was right.  She was free to do this without any consequences.  No one intervened.  Everyone else sat at their tables, enjoying their meal, doing nothing.  For this woman there were no consequences except a request from the manager that they move outside.

That restaurant should have emptied out.  Everyone should have been on the sidewalk forming a corridor of safety for these young and shaken women. 

The foulmouthed woman did not scared me; the passivity of everyone else scared me. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” That woman had a restaurant full of coconspirators that Sunday evening in August.

William Butler Yeats wrote in “The Second Coming”:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity;” and the centre gives way. Jesus was concerned about what happens when the “best lack all conviction.”

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Matt 5:13-16).

It is time for some salt and light because I am getting truly concerned.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister-American Baptist Churches of New York State

Influence not Power

They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes (Mark 1:22). 

This is as much a shot at the scribes as it is an affirmation of Jesus.

What is authority and how is it different from power? 

In my first pastorate I quickly learned the difference.  Apart from the content of my sermons and Bible studies, how I counseled people, and the shape of wedding and funerals, I had little official power in that Baptist church.  I worked from accumulated influence, which was the product of earned authority.

The word used for authority (ἐξουσία) in this Markan passage often indicates the ability to do something to the extent there are no hindrances. Power (δύναμις), on the other hand, is typically used where one has the intrinsic ability to proceed regardless of any hindrances (TDNT, v. 2, pp. 562ff).

In the New Testament, authority can be used to denote the prerogative to make decisions, connoting the freedom to choose.  It is based upon privilege delegated by God; it is given and not grasped.

Jesus at times demonstrated raw power, the intrinsic ability to proceed with or without cooperation.  In the present passage, however, something else is at work.

The listeners in this Markan passage see something in Jesus that is different from what they see in the scribes.  The scribes could only exegete and interpret what had already been given through the prophets.  Jesus, on the other hand, brings to the table something new and creative and not just a rehashing of what the people had always known.

The fresh and unprecedented way Jesus moved among the people and the choices he made lent to his words authority, which resulted in a level of influence the scribes could not attain through formal power and position.

Authority in the early church followed this pattern set by Jesus.  The person in authority led not by force but by a recognition that the leader’s directives were just and honorable.  Authority distinguishes itself from naked power by its ability to produce acceptable answers to questions (Meeks, The First Urban Christians, pp. 122 &137).

The crowd saw authority in Jesus because his answers were simply better than those of the scribes. Authoritarian religious leaders turn to power as the last refuge of those who have run out of compelling, timely answers.

Church leaders, both ordained and lay, are tempted to resort to raw power when they feel they are not going to get their way.  Leaders can feel that they are going to lose something they value, such as position, control, or what is comfortable and familiar.

In this move to power, we violate the example of Jesus and his teachings about leadership:

A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest.  But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors.  But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves (Luke 22:24-27).

Much of the apparent power I had as a pastor was really influence disguised as power.

Christ’s church is to be led by people who have earned influence through the way they move among people, demonstrating humility and a commitment to serving Jesus.  Church leaders are to be as “one who serves.”

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister of the American Baptist Churches of New York State

Privilege in a Dangerous World

A More Dangerous Place
I, like many of you, went to worship on Sunday with the shadow of the attack on the synagogue in

Poway, California, on my heart.  When one adds up the cumulative carnage of this attack, the attack on the synagogue in Pittsburg, the attack on the mosque in New Zealand, the driver in California who is charged with eight counts of attempted murder for intentionally targeting Muslims, the hundreds of Christians killed in Sri Lanka, and the bombing of three African-American churches in Louisiana, it can feel as if resurrection hasn’t really taken hold in the rest of the creation.

Although we all carry grief for these outrages spawned by prejudice and white supremacy, many of us—being European-Americans participating in the majority faith of our nation—perhaps do not feel directly threatened. 

This struck me as I sat in one of our churches this past Sunday, a church of fellow ABC/NYS brothers and sisters from the Burmese Diaspora.  These new Americans are the type of people who become the target of animus born of nationalism and racism.  (Nationalism and patriotism are not the same thing.  These words grew to carry different baggage in the 20th century.)  To sit in that church this past Sunday was more dangerous than it used to be.

We have a variety of ABC/NYS churches where the majority of worshippers are people of color.   Sunday morning, the threat felt among them was not abstract or hypothetical; they were sitting in places that are more dangerous than they used to be.

Power-intoxicated white supremacy, self-centered nationalism, and fearful racism are a threat to many of our ABC/NYS brothers and sister.

People of Privilege

So what about those of us who live with the privilege granted to white Christians in America?  We often hear the timely admonition “if you see something, say something.”  Maybe it is time to start practicing “if you hear something, say something.” 

We cannot shed our privilege like a coat.  We can, however, use it.  When we hear something ugly and dangerous, we can speak up on behalf of people who do not move through life with our unearned privilege.  We can listen to what is going on around us, and we can intervene.  We can demand that the dignity due those who bear within them the image of the Creator of the universe be acknowledged and honored.

I do not think it a stretch to see this as a Christian duty.  The author of 2 Timothy writes: "I solemnly urge you:  proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching [4:1b-2]."  We can be mindful of the time in which we live and our opportunities to teach about what it means to honor the one who created us all.

Giving the Dignity Due
I was waiting in line at the Rite Aid recently, in a hurry to get home to dinner.  I stood behind two Hispanic men whose English was not yet fluent.  They wore dusty work clothes and dirt-encrusted boots; they obviously had spent the day working hard.  One of them was buying left-over Easter candy, all of it 50% off but without the prices clearly marked.  The clerk was trying to explain the various prices.  One of the men kept putting back one item after another; apparently he had a spending limit.  It was quite a process to complete this transaction.  The clerk was incredibly patient and kind and warm, smiling through the whole encounter.  He even tried speaking some Italian to them, thinking that it might be easier for them to understand than English.  I was proud of this man using his position and privilege to make these men feel comfortable and of value.  It was a small thing to do, but it was a powerful expression of kindness and character.

None of us can compel the creation to embrace resurrection, but we can speak out when those around us treat people as if they do not carry within them the image of the Creator of all things who raised Jesus from the dead. 

We, who were undeniably privileged by our culture at birth, can use that privilege for the benefit of those who do not move through the world as easily as we do.  We can at least be kind and loving and affirming to those who among are not so treated all the time, and in that moment resurrection breaks out.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State.

 

The Hope of Lent: We Can Change

The hope of Lent is that we will come out of it a bit different than when we entered, having changed in some way for the better.  When I think of people changing, I think of the pastor of a church I once attended.

First Baptist Church, with its tall white columns and pipe organ and church suppers with real plates, sat just off the town square and was an institution of influence in that southern county-seat town. I joined the Second Baptist Church, with is low slung one-story red brick building and wood paneled sanctuary; it sat on the edge of town and was not a place of power.

I was serving as an intern campus minister at the nearby university.  People assumed I would join First Baptist.  I don’t clearly remember why I joined the other church.  Maybe I wanted to enter fully into the cross-cultural experience of living in a small southern town; I was from the urban north.  Perhaps it was an amateurish attempt at ethnography.  In any case, I joined Second Baptist and parked among Chevrolet pickups instead of Buick sedans.

I began taking several of my male African-American students with me to church on Sunday; they could not afford to go home on the weekend.  The young men were treated politely. They were most likely the first people of color to worship in that church.

One day the pastor took me aside and shared that it was OK for these young men to worship at Second; they were students and would be gone at the end of the year, as would I. He went on to say, however, there would be a problem if one them ever tried to join. So I needed to share that with them or stop bringing them. I told the pastor that I would do neither of those things.  In response he shared that if one of these young men were to present himself for membership, well that would “not be good for me or for you.”

I had moved south with a robust sense of self-satisfied superiority when it came to issues of race.  I believed the south was way behind the north in this arena. My first pastorate in Philadelphia years later disabused me of any naiveté I might have had about the north as the land of enlightenment and justice when it came to racism; but back then in that small town, I was still clothed in my arrogance-producing naiveté.  I went home from that conversation feeling pretty good about myself.

Several months later I was daydreaming my way through one of the pastor’s sermons.  He always ended up preaching about the same three things: gambling; the liquor dealers; and “liberal” politicians.  I already knew he was against all three.  Besides, the closest place to gamble legally was a 150 miles away; it was dry for 80 miles in every direction; and I was not registered to vote in that State. 

I came awake when in the middle of a sermon one Sunday this pastor said the words  “racial prejudice.” He said it was wrong.  He went on to say, and I will never forget the words:  “Don’t look at me like that.  I come from the same place you all come from, but something happened to me.”  He went on to say that the love of God in Jesus changed him; he wasn’t like that anymore.  I was stunned at the risk he was taking in that moment.

As I reflected upon his words later in the day, I engaged in what ethnographers call “reflexivity.”  That is where ethnographers, while studying another group of people, also study themselves.  We grow in self-understanding as we grow in our understanding of others.  I realized I carried a pack of stereotypes and prejudices in my own soul.  I also wondered, “How much was I willing to risk to do the right thing?”

Not long after that, two of these students joined the church.  I am sure there were some in the church who did not like it; but that day as the two young men stood at the front of the sanctuary, they were swamped by people welcoming them.  Change was gaining the upper hand.

Lent is about change, about coming out of it a bit different than we went into it.

People can change.  I saw it in a pastor, while sitting six rows back, center pew, during a sermon to which I was not really listening.  I saw it among pick-up driving folks at a red brick church at the edge of a southern county seat town.  I experienced it as I saw some things about myself through the lens of another’s courage.

We really can change.  That is the hope of Lent.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State

Loving Our Neighbor and Neuroscience

Our neurology predisposes us to love our neighbor. When Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, he is challenging us to nurture our innate, neurological capacity for empathy.

Our brains are wired for empathy argues David Eagleman in his book The Brain-The Story of You.  Our neural circuitry connects with that of others and monitors their pain, judges their intentions, and reads their emotions (p. 151).  An experiment showed that babies less than a year old intuitively show empathy and prefer a kind puppet over a mean puppet, in this case a helpful bear and an unhelpful bear of a different color.

Empathy is the capacity to have your brain stimulated by the experiences of others.  Another person’s pain or grief or fear matrix activates a parallel matrix in your brain. Jeremy Rifkin describes empathy in this way:

To empathize is to cross over and experience, in the most profound way, the very being of another—especially the other’s struggle to endure and prevail in his or her own life journey…Empathy is the ultimate expression of communication between beings (Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream—How Europe’s Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p. 271).

Empathy is a survival instinct.  Although natural selection or “survival of the fittest” plays a role in our survival, there is more to the story.  Without an intuitive empathic connection with others, humans would not have been able to live together in peace, cooperate, and flourish—given that we are slow and weak compared to other creatures closest to us in the food chain.  We help one another be safe, productive, and overcome challenges (Eagleman, pp. 163-164).

Additional research shows, however, that we are prone--unconsciously and unintentionally--to experience greater empathy toward people who are like us and less empathy toward people who are different (Eagleman, pp. 169-170).  It is not a choice we make. Herein lies our struggle: our brain chemistry does not recognize all of those around us as equal.  As one of the pigs says in George Orwell’s Animal Farm:  all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Human empathy is an imperfect survival mechanism.  It helps us to survive, but gives preference to people of our own tribe.

This defect operates most clearly through the process of dehumanization.  If we can shut down the empathic link between us and the homeless person, for example, we avoid feeling bad about not being charitable (Eagleman, p. 171). We experience them as less human than we are.

Language is a common stratagem humans employ to dehumanize others and dull our intuitive sense of connection.  By weaponizing language through derisive and demeaning terms, we can dehumanize others and give free reign to egocentricity.  Insult is the refuge of those who cannot tolerate the common humanity of others.

So when Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, he is challenging us to nurture our innate, neurological capacity for empathy (Matt. 22:37-40).  More stunningly, he commands us to love our enemies as well (Matt. 5:43-44).  There is a part of us that battles against this innate capacity for loving connection, particularly with those who are not like us, those who are not members of our political, social, ethnic, religious, national, or cultural tribe.

We live in a balkanized country, where demeaning and dismissing those who are not a member of our “tribe” has become almost a patriotic duty.  This is a denial of who God created us to be.  This is not an option for followers of Jesus; it just isn’t. 

God instilled within us an instinct for empathy.  Somehow—ask Augustine I guess—that got perverted into a preference for our “own people.”  Jesus challenges us to nurture a purer, Godlier, form of empathy: the capacity to love our neighbor and our enemy simply because they, like us, are made in the image of God.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister of the American Baptist Churches of New York State

History--A Sometimes Difficult Conversation

We were naming a room in our church building.  We already had a room named after the long-term

pastor of the church who led the congregation during what was seen by the long-tenured members as the heyday of the church.

Our choosing of a name had come to the point where we were divided into three groups.  One group wanted to name the room “Founders Hall.” We had a plaque at the back of the sanctuary memorializing the two wealthy men who gave the land and the money to build the church in 1866; forty thousand dollars was a lot of money then.  A second group wanted to name it the “Community Room.” And a third group, of which I was a part, did not understand why it was so important what we named it or even why it had to have a name at all; I was in this third group.  People were civil and respectful as they spoke, but there was great emotional energy in the room.  I sensed something deeper than a name was at stake here.

For most of the church's first century, the congregation had been all white.  As civil rights legislation began to pass and African Americans began to have access to jobs for which they were qualified but had been denied, they started moving into northwest Philadelphia.  As the composition of the community changed, so did the church.  The first person of color joined in 1964.  When I arrived in the early 90’s, the church was overwhelmingly African American.

As the discussion went on in that business meeting, it dawned on me what was at stake.  The church was struggling with its past.  When the church was founded and those generous men gave that land and money, the majority of the people in the room that day would not have been welcome in the pews.

As a young inexperienced pastor still learning my church and ministry, I did not that day share my insight.  I was unsure whether the people in the room could endure intact such a candid conversation that would feel like an indictment of our storied founders.  Looking back now with more history among them, I suspect we would have been alright.  It would have been a difficult but good conversation for us to have.  History is like that; it can be a difficult but cleansing conversation.

 To have judged those founders by our practices and sensibilities would have been unfair and would have bred a sense of self satisfaction in us that would have stymied our further spiritual growth.  We are all a product of our times.  Our mental and moral horizons are limited, for most of us, by the breadth of vision of our contemporaries.  It is humbling to think about how those who follow us in a century will evaluate our choices and norms.

Recently, Southern Seminary confessed the school’s role in propagating and seeking to preserve slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and white supremacy.  Communities are struggling with how they should memorialize and interpret the War Between the States, a war in defense of human slavery.  Some have catalogued how housing discrimination shaped the present day character of the city of Chicago (Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Sons—The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration) and other northern cities.  Others have catalogued the role of slavery and racism in building the industrial base of the entire country (Edward E. Baptist, The Half has Never Been Told—Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism).  These are difficult but healthy conversations.  Sometimes to enter well into the future we need to own our past. 

The Hebrews are cautioned before entering into the promise land:

Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people.  Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place (Deut. 9:6-7).

We are stronger communities when we speak honestly and clearly and, yes with humility, about how we have arrived where we are, both the commendable and the regrettable legs of our journey.  To have difficult conversations about our shared past is an act of confidence in the strength of our present communities, conversations that can open to us a better future.

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister of the American Baptist Churches of New York State