Love comes through laying down in your life. Here at St. Paul’s, we want to be people that lay down our life for the sake of others. 1 John 3:17, says “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” It’s easy to see those without and we at St. Paul’s step up big for those that are without meals, without resources to provide it basic bills in their home, and other practical needs. At St. Paul’s we go and we serve on mission trips throughout our country to help those that are without and we step up to provide for those trips.
On the forefront of all of our minds this past week with the George Floyd case coming to a conclusion coupled with many new incidents of racism. I posted about one on Facebook. I know for some of you, you loved it. Some of you hated it and don’t like me anymore, or maybe never did. I don’t know. But I know that social issues can stir a lot of emotion. I want to say a couple things about it in light of this week and this text. Jesus didn’t ignore social issues and as your pastor I am not going to ignore them. Jesus called out the sin of racism many times over. In fact, he intentionally did not go around Samaria(Samaritans were a group of people Jews were racist towards) to make a point of not being racist. He also made the hero of one of his most well known parables a Samaritan, the Good Samaritan.
I know some of you think the pastor shouldn’t discuss politics. Well, this isn’t Democrat versus Republican politics and yeah I will stay out of that arena. Politics defined is the nature of humans and how they relate to each other. So you can look at it the overarching theory of politics and yes, it’s politics, but it’s not Democrat versus Republican. It’s about human beings. As the church we should go to Jesus for how we react to social issues not Fox News or CNN.
Jesus is for humans. He’s about showing love to humans. As the text says in 1 John 3:16 “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Jesus laid down his life for us and showed us how to live a life in the laying down of our lives. As your pastor, I’m called to lead in this. And it’s difficult to lead in this because if I say one thing about 1 side of the deal, the other side’s mad at me if I say one thing over here, the other side’s mad at me. But I have to say something. If I don’t say something then folks will see that as a message and not be happy. But not saying anything isn’t an option because I believe we have a mandate from scripture to speak on this. Jesus has called us to speak out for those with no voice.
The passage in 1 John tells us that laying down our life for others is not ignoring the needs of those around us. Our mandate is found right there in 1 John. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) are crying out to our world that they have a need and that they are experiencing racism, social inequity, and discrimination. As the body of Christ we are called to lay down our life for them. We are called to set aside what we think and enter into their world to show them love. We should show love by seeing their experience as right. What we’re seeing in our country is that we’re hearing about the experience of the people of color in our world that what they’ve experienced. As Christ followers, we’re called to help those who are crying out for help. Our brothers and sisters in Christ, who are not white are crying out for help, and why can’t we help them? Why is there such a resistance in our hearts to that?
We talk about unity in the church but how can we have unity if this is an issue we won’t deal with. As Milltown grows and expands with new developments as well as older folks retiring and moving out of town we are only going to see more diversity in our community and church. It is my vision as your pastor to see a diverse church that is open and welcome to all people regardless of race. As white folks we are the majority at St. Paul’s and in Milltown then we need to address this issue. We need to put to death ourself for the sake of the BIPOC in our community. I’m calling us to listen, learn, and love.
Over the past year I’ve talked to many people about this issue in our broader Milltown community as well as here at St Paul’s. There are themes I’ve seen for sure. First and foremost you should know that BIPOC in our midst have experienced racism and are crying out for us as the church to listen to them. They are crying out for justice. As a baseline they are crying out for us to listen, learn, and love. Second, the only people who deny the issue of racism have one skin color and that is white. I understand we are all on a journey in how we deal with racism but its a fact racism is alive and well. Just because you’ve never experienced it and you don’t have hate in your heart doesn’t mean that it is not happening. Again, as we lay down our life for the sake of others we begin to see things from their point of view.
Finally, I’ve learned that it seems if you make a stand against racism then you are against police officers. I’m not sure how we’ve gotten to this place to be honest. All human systems are broken. The human system called the church is broken. When you hear me criticize a system it does not mean I am criticizing people who are operating in the system. For example, as a pastor I’m deeply rooted in the church system. The church system has produced pastors, priests, and other church leaders to become sex addicts, sexual abusers, and egotistical monsters. I have been very critical of this and how the system leads to this. This does not mean I don’t like myself, my friends, or other leaders in the church. It means as a leader I’m calling out what is wrong.
I love police officers, I have nothing against police officers. In fact, I have many close friends and family who serve in law enforcement. Recently, I had in my office for a couple hours, a police officer who is part of St. Paul’s to hear their perspective on this issue and we had a very productive conversation on the issue. I believe that that the police officers that we know that I talked with are not overtly racist. He told me he does not ever intend to be a racist. He doesn’t want to ever do anything with racist motives, and no one he knows, and I believe him, because that’s his experience. He also told me that in his particular force if an officer is found to be citing BIPOC at too high of a rate they are held accountable. I believe him. We should not look down on or hate someone because they are wearing a police uniform. In fact, I know very few white folks that intend to be overtly racist. Not many wake up wanting to hurt someone else because of the color of their skin. I believe that to be true.
This is not the space for me to explain in detail the ways in which racism is still pervasive. However, my call to listen, learn, and love will lead you to find that if you lay down your life for the sake of others in this area. What I will state is that there are people in our midst that have experienced racism and have experienced the effects of racism. We need to listen to them. Because it is their experience they are right. How do we love and bring unity in these worlds? It’s to posture ourselves, to listen, not to get defensive not to get angry about it, not to tell them their experiences is false. If somebody experienced racism, the worst thing we could do is tell them that’s not what they experienced. And I see that on Facebook and in my recent thread on the issue you can find folks saying that’s not what they experienced. That is the wrong posture to take as someone seeking to lay down their life for the sake of others and begin to meet needs. The first thing we need to do is listen. I’d encourage you to have a conversation with a BIPOC and hear their story. Create a space where they can be open and honest. Don’t get defensive or try to explain it away, truly listen to learn and grow.
As we listen we will learn. For many you might be asking the question, “Where is racism?” As I said I believe for many we aren’t overtly racist and don’t have evil in our hearts. We don’t see it or experience it sometimes as white people. A great way to learn after having conversations is to read. Fortunately, we have curated resources on our website to help you learn: https://stpaulsmilltownnj.org/racialreconciliation/. Most of them are produced by Christ followers with the same goal as I’ve laid out here. There are articles and books to read as well as videos to watch for those who don’t like to read. As you learn I know your eyes will be opened, tears will flow, and conviction will come. As you journey please don’t journey alone. Reach out and have discussions with me or others on the journey with you at St. Paul’s.
As Milltown develops we will see more BIPOC and I’m excited about it. We are going to see more BIPOC enter into our midst to become members and become active participants. So we’ve got to ask ourselves, are we going to be defensive about this issue? Are we going to politicize it to a party issue and say, we’re not going to talk about it and not deal with it? Or are we going to put on the politics of Jesus and lay down our lives for others? Are we going to be a church that brings unity to this, that postures ourselves to be diverse? We’ve got to have these conversations, we’ve got to talk about it and we’ve got to bring it out into the light.
I think we can all agree that this conversation starts in the home and at the church level. We might not agree about all the nuances of this issue. But we can agree that it starts here in the church, it starts in the home, it starts educating our children to live as Jesus live. It starts here in the church to love people as Christ loved by laying down our lives for the sake of others. Can we start there? Can we agree to that that we’re going to love as Christ loved? We’re going to lay down our life for our brothers and sisters. We’re going to lay down our life for our police officer friend. I’m gonna challenge the people of color that you have a good people here at St. Paul’s who are police officers that love and care for you. Would you be willing to lay down your life and listen to them to hear their story?
And the flip side with police officers and those who think there’s no racism in our country, would you be willing to listen to the stories of the people of color in this church? If we would do that as St. Paul’s, we would see unity like we’ve never seen before. In this issue, we can lead the way as the church. St. Pauls needs to have a voice leading the way, we cannot ignore it. And I won’t as your pastor, ignore it. You may not like that. I would love to have conversations with you about it. And we can do this together, I’m not going to be perfect, you’re not going to be perfect. But if we do this unified together, laying down our life, as Jesus laid down his life for us for each other, we will begin to listen, learn, and love each other becoming the family the church was meant to be.