to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
(Luke 4:16–21)
I WAS BARELY A YEAR INTO PARISH MINISTRY when Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri.
Having served in racially and ideologically diverse contexts since I was ordained a priest, I have found that this one issue is seen from a multitude of vantage points and that the mere mention of it is enough for some people to shut down. That reality grieves me deeply. I also know that as someone who has lived thirty-three years as an African American in this country, this incident sparked something in me. The images of his lifeless body lying in the street and the way law enforcement officers were deployed to subdue the pain and anger of the Ferguson community triggered memories that I didn’t even know I had. It is as if, almost by default, this country regularly reminds black people of our place here. The message seems to be: we can occupy public space, but not too much.
I was serving in a historically white congregation at this point. To be clear, this community admitted that they wanted to be a more ethnically and racially diverse community, but like many historically white mainline congregations, the conversation was as far as many were willing to go. In this context, I found myself needing a place of refuge and escape, a place to soothe the open wound that had been inflicted by a society that treats black lives with open contempt or subtle disregard. I found the community I needed by attending a mass meeting at a local church in Kansas City, Missouri. The meeting was billed as an opportunity to gather as a community, to grieve, and to organize. The church was located in the historically black side of the town, albeit in the wealthier part. Whereas I regularly had to cordon off my experience as a black person to engage in worship with the community I served, I was free to be me here. We came together. We wept. We sang familiar hymns. We held hands. We hugged. We prayed.
My God, we prayed.
I am too young to know what a mass meeting during the civil rights movement might have looked like, but many in that room were there when Kansas City burned. It had only been a few decades since Kansas City police officers, trying to subdue another instance of civil disturbance, threw tear gas into a youth dance in a church basement, setting off the Kansas City Riot of 1968, eventually resulting in the death of six, injuries to dozens of others, millions of dollars in property damage, and a city traumatized by division. What felt true for me in that church is that faith has been a cornerstone of the way black people in the community have not only found solace in the face of terror and oppression, but also resolve.
Several decades removed from the event, I remember most vividly the direct connection between prayer and witness. Unlike many of the church services I’ve experienced, the prayer of that assembly had a trajectory. It is one thing to understand the Holy Spirit as the animating force underneath and within our prayer. It is something altogether different to understand ourselves as having been taken into that force and carried into a new, inspiring reality—the kingdom of God. Prayer and worship painted a compelling vision that left the congregation yearning for a better, more just, more compassionate world.
We sang and prayed and heard scripture proclaimed and then were told how to be in the world in a way that bore witness to the inbreaking movement of justice that is part-and-parcel to the reign of Christ. There was energy in that room and that energy was given a direction and purpose—organize new justice-oriented communities, be a just presence in your sphere of influence, believe that a more compassionate world is possible despite the desperate tantrums of injustice because God has already won the ultimate victory. It might even be suggested that the prayers of the community gathered in that room were eschatological, that is, oriented toward the promise of God’s future.
This experience was intentional. It drew a lot of energy and wisdom from the mass meetings of the civil rights movement. The spiritual and moral energy that supported the civil rights movement was cultivated in the Black Church, black Christian communities who trace their legacy back to the slave churches across the antebellum United States of America. These churches took on the task of reinterpreting Christian tradition in a way that was affirming of black people living in white supremacist power systems, redeeming and transforming a faith tradition white supremacy had distorted and twisted beyond recognition. Unlike their white, privileged counterparts, black Christians never had the ability to settle into Sunday performative religion because their lives were at constant risk. Part of African American Christian public worship makes clear that God is present with us and that because of God’s presence, our lives are being changed and the oppressive regimes that surround us are being dismantled as God’s “Great Day” comes ever more clearly into view.
The spiritual force underneath the civil rights movement was deeply rooted in scripture, such as Isaiah’s prophetic vision of the “peaceable kingdom.” Civil rights activists were not involved in any ordinary task. They knew themselves to be involved in work of divine importance. Churches not only supplied the space for these mass meetings to take place, they also set the tone. Nowhere is this more evident than Martin Luther King’s final speech at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, where he, invoking Moses on Mount Nebo, exclaimed:
I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ive-been-mountaintop-address-delivered-bishop-charles-mason-temple)
The context is very different and it can be argued that the privilege of white mainline denominations strips them of any urgency, but I often wonder if contemporary mainline churches have this degree of spiritual integrity and power or clarity of purpose. My sense is that we do not. Church for many is their last refuge of safety and sanity in a world gone mad, so any bandwidth for change, even personal change, has been squeezed out. The institution itself is facing such an existential crisis that energy is being diverted away from conversations about the purpose of Church and how we must deepen our call to Christian discipleship and is instead being poured into conversations about self-preservation. In this context, the function of worship then is to comfort us in what we feel is our affliction and to promise us the maximum amount of benefit with the least amount of effort. As much as we might like this to be true, this simply doesn’t reflect God’s mission expressed in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus tells followers like us over and over again that those who seek life, abundant life, must surrender the life they have now. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
That call to follow is the basis of our participation in God’s mission. While the attribution is misplaced and reflects the Episcopal Church’s self-understanding in a particular moment, the answer to the question of mission in the prayer book is spot on. The mission of God (the Book of Common Prayer says “mission of the Church”) “is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (Book of Common Prayer, 855). The primary actor in that mission is God, who is already out ahead of the church engaging in this transforming and liberating work. The invitation from God is to participate in this work, to join the movement as it were, to bear witness to God’s kingdom. God has already said “yes” to us by securing our freedom from sin and death. No matter how worthless or unworthy we think ourselves to be, God sees such immeasurable value and worth in us that God was willing to give of God’s own self to save us. To follow God therefore is to respond to God’s “yes” with a “yes” of our own. Far from being a celestial fire-insurance policy, joining