Where Lament Finds Its Home

Transcript

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[0:01] Good morning. Well, thanks for this opportunity to share some of my thoughts on the series that we've been reading. I don't have an MDiv or official training as a pastor or anything of that sort. I'm just a lay person, but I've been thinking and working in DEI for about 15 years as a believer, and I appreciate this opportunity to share some of my thoughts and my perspective. So, my perspective also comes from being in academia, and I'll share some economic work and a story about the concept of belonging, which I think is relevant and provides some additional insight to what we've been reading into the scripture passages. So, for today's message, we're looking at chapter 7 and 8 in Michelle's book, and these two chapters begin her final section in the book, where she suggests some spiritual practices to make the church a better place for the church, and the church has been a place of spiritual growth and spiritual growth. So, in chapter 7, she encourages us to re-read the scriptures to see how God wove color and culture in so many aspects and stories in the Bible. She encourages us to see also our own cultural perspectives, including our own cultural blind spots and biases. She also encourages us to seek and appreciate the cultural richness of others who are different from us.

[1:26] So, as Nathan read in Revelation chapter 21, the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into the kingdom of God. So, Michelle also notes there are similar phrases and themes in Isaiah chapter 60. I didn't ask Nathan to read this Isaiah passage, but it's a bit longer, but I encourage you to take a look at it if you get a chance. There's similar themes about the richness of God's love for the church, and the spiritual Heath of the Lord, the spiritual Heath of the in our spiritual practices. He notes that in songs and stories of lament that they're often neglected in our American culture and especially in the American version of Christianity.

[2:38] So Michelle points us to Psalm 22, which is one of David's Psalms of Lament, and I'll refer back to that later on. So there's a lot of depth and richness in these two chapters, and I've really appreciated them and this whole book. I hope that others have also been growing along by reading Michelle's book. So I'd like to also add to these chapters and share a story about belonging.

[3:06] And with most good stories, this story has multiple layers. And I promise I'll come back to these two chapters and to these passages, but I'd like to share this particular story. So the story begins with a person by the name of C.P. Ellis.

[3:25] Claiborne Paul, who was known as C.P. to most people, was born into poverty in 1927 in North Carolina. His father worked at the local mill and struggled with a drinking problem. C.P. described that he was very close to his father, but he was also embarrassed by his father because the way he looked, they often had to wear worn clothing and second-hand clothing. And he was also embarrassed about the worn clothes that he had to wear. And he was also embarrassed about the wear when he had to go to school.

[3:58] C.P. quit school in the eighth grade so that he could help provide for the family. But he still felt very inferior to other kids and other families. And he felt that many other kids and families were making fun of him.

[4:13] C.P. grew up. He got married and had four kids. One of the four kids had special needs and had to be placed into an institution. And that, of course, put an additional financial strain on their family. And C.P. described that he never seemed to be able to get ahead in life.

[4:33] He borrowed some money from a bank and bought a gas station. And after he bought the gas station, some men from a local organization would come by to buy a Coke and to hang out and to get to know him. This particular organization, which some would describe as a Christian group, wasn't affordable. It was a normal church, but had connections to many churches. C.P.'s father belonged to this group, and C.P. was invited to join this group. When C.P. became a formal member of the group at the particular ceremony, he would describe it as one of the emotional, thrilling moments in his life. He cried at this particular ceremony. He said that he felt like he was finally a part of something. He found a place where he belonged.

[5:27] So in the exercise, I asked people to share a little bit about, you know, if you had a particular memory of a social context where you felt like you belonged, to share three words or three emotions. And if you can put that up, you can see these words that people felt like and had associations with instances where you felt like you belonged. And you can see many of these words, like happy.

[5:56] Relaxed. Valued. Content. Touched. Energized. Grace. And so forth. And it's really interesting to take a look at these words. And I also ask people to share experiences where you felt like you didn't belong. And so this is in contrast. And if you can share that. Oh, yeah. So you see, take a look at this. You see words like uncomfortable, neglected, nervous, anxious, and sad. And the・・・ ・・・ ・・・・ ・・・・ ・・・ ・・・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ these words, there's a particular story or an incident that comes to mind.

[7:01] And it was really interesting. So I talked with this particular exercise with Yuki, my wife, and it was really interesting. She had trouble coming up with words. And in particular, she had trouble coming up with words with this particular exercise of instances where she felt like she didn't belong. And it was very easy for me. And so this shows the differences between the two of us that by default, I, so this is a little personal perspective. So I, by default, feel like I don't belong in most situations. And so that I have to earn my way into belonging into organizations.

[7:45] Yuki, in contrast, feels like her default mode is that she belongs. And that she, she sort of operates in that type of mode. So it's kind of interesting the differences that we operate, even though many of us would identify, would, Yuki and myself as being Asian-American. She doesn't like that term Asian-American, by the way. She defines as being Asian, as Japanese.

[8:06] I'm perfectly fine with being described as Asian-American. But it's kind of interesting to think about these two situations of belonging and not belonging. And as we take a look at this, I thought it was kind of interesting. If we take a look at this particular set of words of not belonging, I feel like many of these words describe a lot of internal, inward reflecting actions and emotions.

[8:33] So that if you don't feel like you don't belong, you are more likely to withdraw and disengage, to be cautious and tired, and less likely to act. But the other words in the first set of emotions, they often describe words of being energized and being active and accepting others. So that when you feel like you are accepted, you are more likely to accept others. As you feel like you're valued, you are more likely to value others. So it's really interesting to think about these differences.

[9:13] So the reason I've been thinking about this concept of belonging is that I've started reading this book called Belonging by a professor of psychology at Stanford, Jeff Cohen. He's been researching this for decades along with many others, and he's written a really wonderful three page essay. So I'm happy to share that. It's a lot shorter than a full book, obviously.

[9:33] But I'll share that later on if you'd like. So Jeff Cohen refers to this story about C.P. Ellis, and so let's continue in this particular story. So there's one critical detail that I left out so far about C.P. Ellis and this organization. That he joined.

[9:51] And as I mentioned, some would describe this particular group as a Christian group. And this group was actually the KKK. If you're not familiar with the KKK, this stands for the Ku Klux Klan. Many people would describe the KKK as a white supremacist, right wing terrorist and hate group. And it's fascinating they used many tactics that many churches also used to invite C.P. into their group.

[10:19] They reached out to him. They intentionally went to his workplace, to his gas station to spend time with him. They welcomed him and helped him to feel that he belonged. But this is so ironic. C.P. joined a group that where he felt like he belonged.

[10:38] But he joined a group that was very intentional about excluding others. So Jeff Cohen also notes that many, many of his friends and family members were extremists. And he says that many former extremists will explain that they became extremists not because they belonged to, not because they agreed to the dogma or ideology, but because they wanted to belong.

[11:02] So this also resonates with many other studies that show that we are often socialized into our beliefs. That we don't have this some sort of logical deductive process of thinking about our beliefs, but that we are often socialized into our beliefs by the people that we choose to spend time with. So this makes us think about how much time we're spending with different people and how we're associating with people. We want to be thoughtful about that. So the story of C.P. Ellis continues further. C.P. rose to the ranks of the KKK and became a primary leader of the local group. And he actually became the exalted Cyclops. He was recognized as a leader in the KKK and also in the local community.

[11:48] Let me just say that I'm not going to go into too much detail about the history of the KKK. But later on, the community also went through a lot of turmoil because the schools were ordered by the courts to desegregate. This happened decades after the 1954 Supreme Court Brown versus Board of Education ruling that segregated schools were unconstitutional. And this also shows how slowly things were moving. This was in 1971 in Durham, North Carolina that C.P. got involved. So the community at that time needed to decide how to proceed with their local schools. And there was a series of community gatherings that began to happen called a charrette. So at one of these meetings, C.P. stood up and argued for continued segregation for the white and black students to stay in their separate schools. What was really interesting, what was really fascinating was that there was a black man by the name of Howard Clements thanked C.P. for being honest. And another black man nominated C.P. to serve as a co-chair for this charrette. But what was also interesting was that there was another person, Ann Atwater, who was a black woman activist who was also nominated to co-chair this charrette. And C.P. would describe that he really hated Ann Atwater with a purple passion.

[13:15] So C.P. initially didn't want to work with Ann. But he did. But he said that he again felt a sense of belonging, a sense of pride because he was invited to become a leader for this particular group. And again, we have this sense of belonging at a critical point in this story.

[13:34] You could probably guess what happens to the rest of the story, so I'll get to the punchline. Through working with Ann, he began to understand her perspective and their similarities of living in poverty.

[13:47] He also began to realize that he had a lot of experience with the black community. He also began to understand that many of the white leaders who wanted to maintain segregation were actually using him, that their relationship with him was not really authentic. There was one particular instance that C.P. later relates that there was a white leader whom C.P. had known and actually worked with.

[14:07] And this other white friend, or supposed friend, intentionally walked across the street to avoid him because he didn't want to publicly associate with C.P. So they were willing to use CP but not to be publicly be friends with them. So CP realized that he was being used and manipulated and really didn't belong to these white extremist communities.

[14:33] So CP ended up tearing up his KKK membership card on the last night of the charrette and voting for desegregating the schools. He wanted the schools to integrate with each other. He suffered repercussions for denouncing the KKK, but he had a new friendship with Ann Atwater. And the two continued working together for many decades after that.

[14:58] When CP died in 19- when he died in 2005, Ann Atwater actually delivered the eulogy to his funeral. So I think it's really touching. So as I mentioned, this story has multiple layers. There was also a movie made about this story called The Best of Enemies that came out in 2019.

[15:20] And I watched it and this- the movie's actually pretty decent. And there was something about the movie though that sort of bothered me. I couldn't really put my finger on it until I thought a little bit more about this.

[15:34] But the movie primarily focuses on the perspective of CP Ellis, a white man, and not Ann Atwater, a black woman. So as Tony Monk, as Tony Morrison has keenly noted, the commonly used perspective is the white gaze.

[15:50] Assuming that the default perspective or lens is from the white person. And I invite you to learn a lot more about Ann Atwater. It's really interesting. If you take just look at the Wikipedia entries for Ann and for CP, I find it interesting that Ann Atwater's Wikipedia entry is actually much longer than CP Ellis. Not that she'd be the primary means of measuring the value of a person. But there's a lot of richness to Ann Atwater's story.

[16:21] And you know, in terms of Ann's story, it's pretty amazing. You know, she was a activist for the black local communities, working particularly for the black poor communities. And she had to suffer a lot also for working with a KKK leader in the Charette. And I honestly don't know if I would have been willing to have done that.

[16:45] But for this particular movie, we can rationalize that the movie producers had to make money and to show the perspective from the majority of the potential audience. And we can also again see how that this is, you know, made to be the default or the good or the right perspective of showing CP's perspective and not focusing on Ann Atwater's perspective.

[17:08] As I go back thinking about Michelle Sanchez's book, she warns us in chapter 7 about these potential systemic blind spots where we focus on a particular perspective or bias. And so I pray that for myself and for all of us that become more aware of these systemic blind spots and biases.

[17:28] So I'd like to also go back to the passage in Psalm 22 and if you can show that. We've got these first two verses that Psalm 22 begins with. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. By night, I find no rest. So it's interesting. So this is a Psalm of David and he's crying out to God. And we could see that David feels like he doesn't belong to God, that he's forsaken by God and he's crying out to God. But then it's interesting. It ends. And so if we take a look at the second part of this, yeah, this is at the end of the Psalm. This is David still. And he ends with saying this, all the rich of the earth will feast and worship. All who go down to the dust will kneel before him. Those who cannot keep themselves alive.

[18:38] Yeah, posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness. Declaring to a people yet unborn. He has done it. So it's, yeah, I encourage you to take a look at the whole Psalm, but it's really interesting to start contrast between the beginning and the end.

[18:59] It's clear that David doesn't feel like he doesn't belong at the very beginning, but he's crying out to God. But at the end, he's praising him. And so I hope that you're thinking and wondering about what happened in between. Where's the arc of this particular scene? And what's the key to this psalm?

[19:16] So I think the key is not in the middle, but actually in the start of the Psalm. David feels forsaken by God, but he cries out to God. This is a Psalm to God. He's praying to God. He's lamenting to God. So when I'm suffering or hurting, my frequent inclination is to withdraw into myself and to feel sorry for myself. And I think others might behave similarly. Because the word cloud. Emotions. When we feel like we don't belong, seem to have a lot of internal emotions and actions.

[19:52] But in contrast, David goes to God in his suffering as David goes to God. He reminds himself of a God, how God created him in his mother's womb, And created him to trust God as an infant. He goes back and forth in a song. And it's not just the clear arch or clear transition. He goes still goes back and forth about feeling torn. and he goes to his suffering. But he ends up praising God for all of his blessings and reminds himself that he belongs to God and that he, along with many others, will praise God for his riches and his posterity.

[20:29] So this is the key to lamenting, not withdrawing into oneself, but directing our prayers to God, to the one who can save us and to the one who is our Savior and our Lord. And I pray that for myself and for all of us that we will go and do likewise.

[20:46] So it's pretty amazing that David goes through this transition, through this arc of this particular psalm. And so Michelle reminds us, though, in terms of lament, that we're not supposed to be, as Pastor Victoria also encourages, that this is not simply just for us to cry about ourselves, but to also cry for others, too.

[21:08] So Michelle encourages us to develop these two spiritual practices, to see and celebrate the righteousness of God, to see the richness of God's creation in all the colors and cultures, including seeing how we can become so narrowly focused on our own cultures and belonging to the value of other cultures.

[21:26] And secondly, to share in the lament of those who have often been marginalized, made to feel that they don't belong and to cry out to God on their behalf. So, and I believe Hans-Erik is going to continue and wrapping up with the two other spiritual practices. I'm really looking forward to that. And thinking about how we can move forward.

[21:47] So I really do appreciate this opportunity to share briefly about some of my thoughts. I hope this has been helpful for others. And I hope that it's, I know that for myself, it's really helped me to gather my thoughts and express some of my thoughts together. So thanks.

[22:03] Oh, so, and we'll also be moving on to the doxology.