On
Ferguson: A Marsh Chapel Reflection
In a pastoral mode, let me offer three overtures in
reflection upon the events in Ferguson, MO this week. These brief thoughts follow on sermons
delivered this fall at Marsh Chapel, which already have addressed the tragedy
in Ferguson (8/24, 9/7, 10/12, 10/26, 11/23, 11/30), and on the Marsh Chapel
forum held here on 9/3, and on several other group and individual
conversations.
First, it may help us most, and this counter-intuitively,
to place ourselves sub specie
aeternitatis, under the gaze of God, and approach this particular but
revelatory event from a spiritual, and theological perspective. In prayer.
In thought. In worship. In
gathering. In conversation. To remember that we and all whom we encounter
are children of the living God. We are
not economic engines, solely, nor political operatives, mainly, nor cultural
agents, centrally, nor partisan players, primarily. We are angels in waiting. And those whom we greet and consider are so,
too. As children of the living God,
grounded in grace, sustained by spirit, we may have food for the work and bread
for the journey. General calls for
ongoing conversation are well meaning but misdirected without daily rations. Theologically then we will again brood over
sin, death, meaninglessness.
Theologically then we will confess pride, sloth, falsehood, hypocrisy,
sloth and idolatry. Theologically then
we will return to admission of evil, both banal and horrific, to admission of
the enduring hardness and hardship of injustice, to admission of our
complicity, hate to say so as we do, in the gone wrong part of life. Isaiah Berlin would agree. If nothing else, a spiritual, theological
perspective will perhaps improve our capacity to listen.
Second, it surely will help us, and this more obviously,
to read some history, some good, probing history. Ferguson comes 200 years or so after much of
our American economy, politics, culture and struggle were forged in cotton. You can read Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American
Capitalism. But the calculation is
closer to home. 30% or 40% of slavery is
still with us today—in economy, culture, politics, and struggle. From 1810 to 1860 a quarter-million slaves from the Old South were
re-sold into the New South (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas,
Texas, and, yes, Missouri). Mothers had
their babies torn from their arms on the now beautiful Baltimore harbor. Husbands were whipped away from wives, and
marched to Birmingham. Children were
held up like pumpkins and sold to the highest bidder, then sailed down to New
Orleans. They were herded into what had
been Indian land (the Native Americans having been either slaughtered or
‘re-located’ to Oklahoma). With cost free
land and cost free labor trees were cut, fields were plowed, cotton was planted
and harvested, mills in the north were set to work, all or almost all funded by
a tsunami of credit, legitimated by the US government and various banks. You know, you, even you, I, even I, can make
money if you pay nothing for land and pay nothing for labor. But the bills do accrue into the future, not
just for the enslaved, but also for the enslaver, and for all those, both north
and south of the Mason Dixon line, who benefitted from slavery and the torture
it took to keep people chained. The
sky-line of Boston, dear old Boston, old money Boston, is so beautiful,
especially if you don’t look too closely at where all that 200 year old money
came from. If nothing else, a historical
perspective will perhaps improve our capacity to lament.
Third, we need to act.
I do not mean re-act. To act we
need a moral compass. To find a moral
compass you need a community of faithful women and some men, acquainted with
wonder, vulnerability, and self-mockery, with mystery, generosity, and, yes,
morality. You need a church. I am glad to host a vigil, as we will do
Tuesday night. Please come. Please do.
But my interest in your presence will be quickened, made real, if I see
you in church, praying, tithing, teaching children, visiting the sick, studying
the Gospels, singing hymns, living a life in which you are really alive before
you die. I have less interest in, less
compassion for, people who descend for a moment from the heavenly clouds of
utter self-centeredness to attend a vigil or watch a car burning on TV, only to
return later to a lonely, greedy, narrowly immoral life. I don’t care that you come to Marsh, or not. I am glad to greet you here, or not. But.
Go somewhere once a week to gather with others, admit your mortality and
fragility, and grow up, Sunday by Sunday.
The kinds of labor that it will take in this country for us to live down
chattel slavery will require a moral compass rooted in ancient
faithfulness. Over time, then, you with
others, over much time, will gain the footing, find the leverage, provide the
strength to make real change in real time.
How shall you respond to Ferguson? Spiritually, historically, and morally.
