What if we cared about Black History Month as much as Lent? – Baptist News Global

Rising up within the ’80s and ’90s as an impartial Baptist in an all-white church, the primary 20 Februarys of my life got here and went with none consciousness of both Lent or Black Historical past Month. Liturgy was thought of one thing the evil Catholics did. And every week, we stored the Black children in their very own separate service on the opposite facet of the car parking zone.

Once I joined an Anglican church in my mid 30s, I had just lately deconstructed a lot of my conservative evangelical religion. And like many progressive Christians, I felt anchored by the practices of liturgy and the seasons of the church calendar. Whereas it appeared a bit of bizarre for this former Baptist listening to Christians speak about whether or not they have been giving up chocolate cake or alcohol for Lent, the concept of coming into right into a season of figuring out with the sufferings and vacancy of Jesus for 40 days, as Christians have accomplished for a lot of centuries, had an intriguing richness to it.

Rick Pidcock

My theological journey out of conservative evangelicalism was in the end a journey into wholesome relationships. Via my rising self-awareness, I started to understand how I used to be carrying my wounds in my physique throughout worship. Because the therapeutic from this journey continued, my self-awareness started to broaden to incorporate the wounds of my neighbor. And on this rising neighbor consciousness, I started to see the struggling of the Black group.

Jesus and the Disinherited

In his e-book Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman distinguished between the faith of Jesus and the ability constructions of Christianity by figuring out Jesus as a Jew, as a poor Jew, and as a member of an oppressed group beneath the management of Rome. For this Jesus, the social problem of his group was survival. Its focus was an interior, radical change that will foster a love-ethic towards private enemies, traitors and even the empire.

Thurman stated, “The putting similarity between the social place of Jesus in Palestine and that of the overwhelming majority of American Negroes is clear to anybody who tarries lengthy over the information.”

As Dominique Gilliard particulars in Rethinking Incarceration, the injustices of institutional racism, sexism, classism, privatization of the jail system, the evangelical obsession with legislation and order, the juvenile justice system, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the tradition of harsh punishment throughout the mass incarceration of Black males all have grown from the theological seed of penal substitutionary atonement and retributive justice fueling a violent, retributive response to regardless of the ruling class labels as crime.

The embodied wounds of Black worship

In The Spirituals and the Blues, James Cone stated: “The spirituals are songs about Black souls, ‘stretching out into the outskirts of God’s eternity’ and affirming the Phrase that makes you understand that you’re a human being — it doesn’t matter what white individuals say. Via the track, Black individuals have been in a position to affirm that Spirit who was steady with their existence as free beings; they usually created a brand new type of spiritual worship. They shouted they usually prayed; they preached they usually sang, as a result of that they had discovered one thing. They encountered a brand new actuality; a brand new God not enshrined in white church buildings and non secular gatherings.”

For the group at Christ Temple in Jackson, Miss., throughout the flip of the twentieth century, led by pastor C.P. Jones, worship providers have been seen as an oasis from the hardships of life, the place they may “dip our drained our bodies in springs of hope.” They poured out their worship with groans and shouts, main some to characterize their worship providers as “the preacher, the music and the frenzy.” Their embodied worship was fueled by their embodied wounds.

Lent from the margins

In Might from the Margins, Dennis Edwards wrote: “Worship is about following Jesus with a view to perceive and observe love for God and love for different individuals … . Worship is about transferring in the best course — alongside the trail that Jesus paved.”

“What if as an alternative of giving up cake for 40 days, we spent that point studying about and grieving for the damaged, hungry our bodies of our Black neighbors?”

As I take into account the simultaneous celebrations of Lent and Black Historical past Month by the lens of Jesus, I’m wondering what it could be wish to converge the 2 conversations alongside the trail Jesus paved.

What if as an alternative of giving up cake for 40 days, we spent that point studying about and grieving for the damaged, hungry our bodies of our Black neighbors? What if, as an alternative of not ingesting wine, we turned extra conscious of and lamented the shed blood of our Black neighbors?

Within the track “Rose Petals,” Dee Wilson of Common Hymnal sings:

The blood of my brother was spilled on the road.
He was the rose that grew out of the concrete.
The identical floor the place his physique lay
Like rose petals on a stony grave.
Why can we worry one another from the lies of yesterday? I’ll by no means know.

However have a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
They referred to as this one Mike Brown.
I’m asking you to take a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
They referred to as this one Travon Martin.
I’m asking you to take a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
They referred to as this one Tyshawn Lee.
I’m asking you to take a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
It’s far too many for me.

The tears of my mom have been spilled at his grave.
She is aware of the price the entire world couldn’t repay.
And when she ought to’ve felt our sympathy,
All we informed her was that her child was responsible.
Will we even have compassion?
Will we even wish to see? I’ll by no means know.

However have a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
They referred to as this one Freddy Grey.
I’m asking you to take a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
They referred to as this one Eric Garner.
I’m asking you to take a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom.
They referred to as this one Sandra Bland.
I’m asking you to take a look at all these roses with petals on the bottom …
’Trigger they’ll change the story in our historical past books.

I’m wondering how many individuals of privilege this month eager for cake and wine aren’t conscious of the tales of Mike Brown, Travon Martin, Tyshawn Lee, Freddy Grey, Eric Garner and Sandra Bland.

For a lot of Christians, Lent is seen as a season of posturing ourselves within the ready vacancy of Jesus within the desert, longing to be crammed. There’s something lovely and profound in that keen humiliation.

However the place is Jesus now?

Maybe it could be higher for these of us in locations of privilege in America to cease excited about Jesus at the moment sitting on a throne in another world ruling the complete cosmos by us and start seeing him within the bellies of the hungry, within the throats of the thirsty, within the eyes of the exiled, within the want of the unclothed, within the groaning of the sick, and within the loneliness of the incarcerated.

Whereas some Black church buildings and denominations observe Lent, there’s a purpose others don’t. Black People don’t want seasonal reminders of struggling. They bear the injuries fueled by white theological privilege of their our bodies day-after-day.

“We do want to acknowledge how a lot deeper this season of Lent may very well be if we appeared for tactics to fulfill Jesus within the ones we’ve oppressed.”

If you’re studying this as a white individual training Lent who actually misses your cake or wine, I’m not writing this stuff to disgrace you for coming into into that season of self-emptying and ready to be crammed. I affirm your willingness to dip your ft into that river. However we do want to acknowledge how a lot deeper this season of Lent may very well be if we appeared for tactics to fulfill Jesus within the ones we’ve oppressed. If we did, then this simultaneous celebration of Lent and Black Historical past Month may converge right into a single dance and certain would change our complete cultural and political system to make this expertise final far longer than a season.

Maybe then, we may reply Dee Wilson’s name to take a look at all of the roses with petals on the bottom. And within the concrete soil of our privileged, unaware hearts, the blood of our brothers spilled on the street may develop the hope of recent communal life out of the stony graves that our retributive theologies of justice constructed.

As you start to ponder the chances of converging these conversations, take heed to this Lenten prayer by Obie Wright Jr. from the e-book Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans

“God of all good life, on our journey towards Easter, cleanse our hearts of each want to imitate the violence of wrongs that befall us. Save us from turning into the evil we hate. Save us from denial of abuses which every day crucify Christ afresh. Drive away the chilling chilly, the wintry frost, of numbing detachment from others’ ache, and our personal hurts, additionally. Breathe, O breathe your empowering Spirit into the troubled hearts of your kids who want they may want to love however can’t.”

Rick Pidcock is a stay-at-home father of 5 children. He and his spouse, Ruth Ellen, have began Provoke Surprise, a collaboration of artists that exists to foster child-like worship by story and track. Provoke Surprise’s first album, Think about the Stars, was launched in March 2020. Their first kids’s e-book, What If, shall be launched quickly. Rick is pursuing a grasp of arts diploma in worship from Northern Seminary.