How to Preach into the Crisis of George Floyd’s Death
by the Rev. Lisa Cressman & the Rev. Rhonda Rogers
This blog is the result of a conversation I had last weekend with the Rev’d Rhonda Rogers, an Episcopal priest and Backstory Preaching Mentorship graduate who will be training next year to become one of our Mentors.
In an interview with Meet the Press in 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. described that 11 a.m. on Sunday morning “is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour in Christian America.”
In sixty years, that reality has shifted very little. As a result, many preachers find themselves preaching into mostly white contexts.
This leaves those churches without the witness, lived experience, wisdom, and leadership of people of color as they navigate tragedies like the murder of George Floyd and the national crisis at hand.
My hope is to share some thoughts and perspectives for those preaching in primarily white contexts, informed by my conversation with Rev. Rogers, so white congregations can step into this moment with humility and courage and repentance.
We also know there are many in our midst who are actively engaged in this struggle, and who have been carrying the weight of this injustice for a lifetime. We encourage you to care for yourself and be taken care of, to find an outlet for and a respite from the anger, frustration and grief:
Rhonda used to hit golf balls at a driving range, but has had to find other outlets during the pandemic. Any physical release—running, walking, push-ups, or dancing until you are spent—will help.
Take a long, hot soak to ease the tension your body is carrying
Read or write poetry, psalms, and laments
Sing or make up new lyrics to favorite songs
Write, draw, or paint—even over newspaper stories—to reframe the narrative.
Talk. Vent. Rage. Yell or scream. Process with God. Process with friends who can share the emotion and handle your expression.
May we all have eyes to see and ears to hear.
***
Most merciful God,
We confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done and what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry, and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
(The Book of Common Prayer, p. 360)
Ahmaud Aubrey
George Floyd
Bettie Jones
Breonna Taylor
Ezell Ford
Sandra Bland
Christian Taylor
Trayvon Martin
The false 911 call by Amy Cooper
And
And
And
“Since January 1, 2015, 1,252 black people have been shot and killed by police, according to the Washington Post's database tracking police shootings; that doesn't even include those who died in police custody or were killed using other methods.”
—From Code Switch’s “A Decade of Watching Black People Die” (May 31, 2020)
First, Confess
Those of us who are white people of privilege must confess we’ve participated in this reality.
No, we didn’t kill anyone ourselves.
But we empowered those who did.
And we’ve benefited by systems that amplify our voice, our influence, and our access to resources: schools, healthcare, mortgages and business loans, due process, voting.
We empowered our legislators, the people we elected—and reelected, to create legally unjust laws that privilege white people over people of color.
No, the laws aren’t that explicit. They are far more insidious.
These are laws that allow just enough latitude in arrests, charges, and sentencing that it’s legal to give people of color harsher charges and longer punishments than white people charged with the same crimes.
These are laws that make it legal to draw voting districts around neighborhoods where most residents are people of color and then restrict their access to voting precincts—or mail-in voting.
As a result, people of color don’t form a large enough voting block to effect change without receiving additional votes from others. Which means those who are in the majority allowed those laws to be made and allow those laws to continue.
The conditions to ensure people of color can’t breathe couldn’t exist without the support of a white majority—and, specifically, white Christians.
Maybe with Mr. Floyd’s death, more will finally see how the systems and laws we’ve supported are kneeling on the necks of people of color.
Then what?
Grieve and Lament
As preachers, we can lead our congregations to grieve and lament these lives, these conditions, and this injustice.
An easy step is to humanize the names, to learn about those killed or hurt.
Who are their family members? Who were their coworkers, friends, and neighbors?
What were they known for?
How did they spend their time?
We must weep with those who weep. Mourn with those who mourn. Feel the sorrow of those who lament.
Not to patronize. Not to add an ounce of our grief to their own.
But to feel keenly these nonsensical losses of God’s unique, irreplaceable images on this earth. To allow the injustice to rock our soul.
We must grieve for the loss of humanity that failed to stop the loss of another human. And allow ourselves to be moved to action.
Preach the grief that accompanies the awareness of things we have done that we ought not to have done, and the things left undone that we ought to have done.
Preach also the reality that underlies the prejudice, hatred, and fear: the reckoning people of privilege resist when they realize it is a delusion and construct that they are the locus, the norm, and the plumb line against which everyone else is gauged despite unequal access. And acknowledge the grief that accompanies that reckoning.
Then preach the grace of forgiveness that is stronger than shame and can free anyone who will accept it to move into solidarity: to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
Listen and Believe
A lot of people are well-intentioned and want to do the right thing.
More so, many don’t want to do the wrong thing out of the ignorance that is our bliss.
For example, I only learned in the last couple of years that apologizing to a person of color for white people’s privilege shifts the burden to the person of color to be chaplain and absolver. I still go red in the face when I think about it: how did I miss something so obvious all these years?
But impact is more important than good intentions.
And the way to become aware of our impact is to actively listen and follow the very people being hurt by our ignorance.
Why don’t white people do this more actively? A number of reasons:
They don’t want to feel the discomfort of hearing the stories of people of color because they don’t want feel shame for deeds done and left undone.
They don’t want to challenge their assumptions and judgments about people of color because they don’t want to face their complicity and collusion.
They live in homogeneous communities where they do not regularly know or interact with people of color, so they do not feel the urgency of these realities day-to-day.
But if those outside marginalized communities don’t ask and listen, how else can they know what it’s like to walk down the street in the USA in 2020 in black or brown skin?
How will your white parishioners develop empathy unless they ask their friends of color to tell the stories they want to tell?
And promise to listen without defensiveness and without apologizing, no matter how hard it is to hear?
That the privileged would simply listen. And believe when their neighbor describes, “This is what happened. This is how I felt.” That would be a start.
Ask your friends of color to have coffee and invite their stories. Still social distancing? Then meet online. Meet six feet away in a park.
Don’t have friends of color? What could you do to change that?
In addition, there are plenty of ways to listen to the lived experiences of real people:
Social media provides plenty of people to hear from and follow. People like Christena Cleveland, Trevor Noah, The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Bryan Stevenson, Rev. William Barber, Jim Wallis, Christiane Amanpour, Austin Channing Brown, and Sojourners. Ask your friends or colleagues who they recommend.
Read fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, journalism, & biographies by Black authors.
Look at art, dance, photography, painting, movies, and music. (There is a reason one genre of music is called “The Blues,” right?)
Read Scripture for stories of people who were oppressed, those who broke through the oppression, the allies who played supporting roles—and about God who makes justice roll down like the waters!
As Austin Channing Brown suggests, “Trouble the narrative.” Don’t accept easy answers or platitudes or the interpretations that have been handed down over the years. Think critically. Do the research. Challenge assumptions.
All of these are means to God’s ends to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Who doesn’t want to be listened to? Who doesn’t want to be heard?
People of color want to tell their stories with allies who will stand with them.
Let them tell you.
Believe what they say. Especially in these heavy days.
Provide emotional respite, support, solidarity. Make it clear you stand with them.
Preach the Hard Truths
“We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”
The unwillingness to acknowledge the truth of our collective past and present will kill people of color in spirit if not also in body.
The following actions actively harm our neighbors:
Shifting the discomfort of shame over centuries of slavery and oppression onto people of color by minimizing their experiences, fabricating false evidence against them, seeing friends of color as the “exception to the rule” of our stereotypes, or excusing ourselves as “not racist.”
Treating people of color as anything less than God’s very good image-made-flesh—in thought, word, or deed.
Justifying police brutality by pointing to any character flaw or past indiscretion of the victim.
Saying seriously, casually, or in jest there is “us” and “them.”
Taking a “not all white people” stance. Of course there are exceptions. Of course no group is a monolith. Even so, there has been harm created by the collective. White people can love and serve by holding space for that pain without insisting on the exception.
Shielding ourselves from the truth of our complacency and failure to act.
Remaining silent at the stories, comments, language of friends, family, and colleagues that are degrading.
Arguing that someone else’s pain is any less painful than they say it is.
Acting in any way that suggests someone doesn’t deserve the best and all that life has to offer by God’s grace.
Believing the distribution of resources (money, land, clean air, jobs, healthy food, excellent education) is a zero-sum game, where advocating that people of color get more means someone else gets less. This is a failure of openness to the Spirit’s limitless creativity and imagination.
Denying that self-sacrifice, dying to self, or being inconvenienced for the sake of the oppressed is the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus.
Make Amends: Do something
Confession is good for the soul because confession is how we face the truth. It opens the way to forgiveness. It is the pathway to healing.
But confession and forgiveness mean little without amendment of life.
If we soak in the balm of Gilead that heals the sin-sick soul but don’t begin to love our neighbors like ourselves—then maybe we misunderstood what “forgiveness” actually means.
Forgiveness means we turn around 180-degrees.
We turn from one way of being—sin-sick—to another way of being—Spirit-spilling.
So, grateful to have had our souls scrubbed clean by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who forgives all sins, even ours, we cannot continue as we were.
Because of Jesus’s grace we are different, so we see differently.
Because of Jesus’s grace we are different, so we choose differently.
Because of Jesus’s grace we are different, so we live differently.
Because of Jesus’s grace we are different, so we love differently: better, fuller, more reverently, more justly, more actively.
Because of Jesus’s grace we love our neighbor more like we love ourselves.
Do this and you are making a start.
The Rev. Rhonda Rogers is Vicar at St. Francis of Assisi, Prairie View in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. Rhonda is an Associate with the Order of St. Helena, a monastic community of women in the Episcopal Church. She is a member of Daughters of the King and Union of Black Episcopalians Reverend John D. Epps Chapter. She is also a member of the Commission on Black Ministry and the Province VII Anti-Racism Committee.
Prior to ordained ministry, Rhonda worked for Mobil Chemical and ExxonMobil Chemical for over 38 years as a Chemical Engineer. In addition to her technical career, Rhonda led employee workshops for Organizational Development, Diversity and Inclusion at Mobil Chemical.