A Week Later: The Social Distancing Resurrection Account

This sermon was preached April 19, 2020 at the combined worship service (via Zoom) for Saint Margaret's Anglican Church in Budapest, Hungary  and The Anglican/Episcopal Church in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

New Life Appears

Focus Text: John 20:19-31

Last Sunday we celebrated the day that our Savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Today, we read the Gospel of John’s account of what happened next. 

But first, to put today’s reading in context, I invite us to back up a bit in story to the start of chapter 20, where we find Mary Magdalene arriving at the tomb before sunrise on the first day of the week. She finds the stone rolled away, and so she runs to Simon Peter and the disciple Jesus loved with word that the Lord’s body has been moved. Those two rush to the tomb, also find it empty, and then go home. Mary, though, remains and is still weeping when two angels and then Jesus appear and speak to her. Jesus calls Mary by her name and instructs her to go tell the others that he is ascending to his God and their God. “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

This is the point in John’s story where today’s reading begins, except now it is evening on the first day. Mary had spoken with Jesus early in the morning. What happened in between the morning and the evening? John doesn’t tell us, but Luke says Jesus then walks to Emmaus with Cleopas and an unnamed disciple—perhaps Cleopas’ wife. They discuss with Jesus the testimony of the women, have a long conversation, and invite him for a meal; He breaks bread with them and vanishes the moment they realize who he is. Then the two rush back to Jerusalem where they find the group has gathered. They swap testimonies, including an appearance of Jesus to Simon. Then Jesus appears and speaks to them.

Now trying to weave the four gospels’ resurrection accounts together creates quite a bit of chronological and geographical confusion. They all agree that Mary Magdalene was at the tomb early in the morning and that there was a lot of fear and confusion and doubts among Jesus’ followers that day. Luke’s account next has Jesus leading the disciples to Bethany, where they watch him ascend. John, however, has an entire week passing where the terrified and confused disciples don’t appear to do much of anything—not even leave the house except for perhaps the most essential of tasks.    

I find it quite fitting that the lectionary has us reading John’s account this year. I’ve started calling it the Social Distancing Resurrection Story. Where do we find the disciples three days after Jesus’ crucifixion? Except for Mary who slips to the tomb so early in the morning that it is still dark outside, the rest are on lockdown. Traumatized by what happened just three days earlier, they are hiding in an undisclosed secured house for fear of what could happen if they were to go out in public. I can only imagine the sort of conversations happening in that house that weekend. The various manifestations of shock and grief – angry outbursts and accusations, paralysis, binge eating, too stressed out to eat, anxiety attacks, bargaining with God, arguing over what to do next and whether going the market was worth the risk of death.

Reports that morning of the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection now added to the mix. The proclamation that Jesus is alive wasn’t enough to get them to unlock the door and shout the good news, so instead, after they’d had several hours to process all this, Jesus comes and meets them where they are. He does not lecture them for their cowardliness or lack of faith or understanding. Instead, not once but twice he says “Peace be with you.” He says that as he is being sent, so is he sending them. Then, he breathes the Holy Spirit onto them—the breath of Life—and tells them that they have the power to forgive sin and the power to withhold forgiveness.

Peace, the Holy Spirit, and the power of forgiveness. Wow. Jesus Christ the King appears to his followers just three days after having been unjustly tortured, humiliated, and killed and his first order of business is to say Peace [shows wounds], Peace, I am sending you [exhales] Receive the Holy Spirit, You are able to forgive all sins. And then he leaves.

One. Week. Later. the disciples are still in lockdown mode in that house when Jesus appears again. Does he lecture them on their lack of productivity or good deeds? Does he scold them for still being too afraid to step back outside into the world and use the spiritual gifts he has given them? No, for a third time he says "Peace be with you," and since Thomas had missed his previous appearance, Jesus gave him too a chance to inspect his wounds. 

The final appearance of Jesus that John shares with us happens back in Galilee, a three to five day walk from Jerusalem depending on if you take the direct route through the lands of the Samaritans. There Jesus finds a group of the disciples have joined Simon Peter in returning to the apolitical life of village fishermen. Is this the time that the risen Christ finally explodes at them for fearfully playing it safe and keeping their heads down? Does he ream them out for avoiding crowds and putting their physical safety first?  Nope. He helps them catch a net-full of fish and makes them a hot breakfast there on the beach. Then Jesus turns to Simon Peter and asks him to show his love in three ways: tend his sheep, feed his sheep, and follow him.    

Here where I live in Ljubljana, Slovenia, it has been nearly 40 days since the schools shut down and the movement restrictions began. For our family, this has meant 40 days of staying home—40 days living under the same roof with visitors who suddenly became our indefinite housemates. Needless to say, it has been a period of messy emotions, tense conversations about how best to stay safe, fear, frustrations, grief, and even feelings of guilt that many people don’t have enough food and a safe place to stay. Perhaps you have had this nagging feeling that you aren’t doing enough to help others right now. Perhaps you’ve been a bit hard on yourself for not being more productive. You want to do something.

One thing I’ve been doing for five weeks is helping our daughter with assignments her 2^nd grade teacher sends us. The science unit all month has been on insects. We've learned together in more detail than I remember being taught about how ants are born, how exactly some camouflage insects change their color each season, and, of course, how a caterpillar enters into its cocoon to become a butterfly. I was reminded of how often in nature it looks like nothing is happening when in actuality tremendous transformation is gradually occurring. Some things simply can't be rushed.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Siblings in Christ, these are confusing and scary days. Like the disciples, we are locked in our homes and holding in tension the Good News of the risen Christ with the knowledge that Christ doesn’t promise that following him protects us from the problems of this world. We are, in a sense, in a cocoon as well. It may appear that we are doing nothing but staying alive, and we wonder why nevertheless we have so little energy.

I invite you to consider the possibility that, like the disciples who even after seeing the risen Christ continued for weeks to avoid public spaces, perhaps internally much more is happening than you think. Perhaps the Lord is patiently waiting for the work that the Holy Spirit is doing on our hearts to be revealed when it is time for us to leave our cocoons.           

My sisters and brothers in Christ.  The world is changing, and so are we. Let us go forth this week with the hope that we will emerge on the other side of this a more loving people.

Amen.

John, Jesus, and Staying in Our Lane: A New Year's Resolution Sermon

I first preached this sermon in the Church of England's congregation in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 
Lectionary Text: Matthew 3:13-17

Good morning!  Here we are together in this place in the year 2020. For some of us, this is difficult information to process. We think about the passage of time, what our life journey has been thus far, and perhaps we make promises to ourselves about ways in which we’ll do better from here on out. Some of us may be pumped up and excited about the future while others fearful, discouraged, or overwhelmed.  We may even feel guilt or shame about what we have or haven’t done to address the problems of this world, and, I suspect there are among us those who are tempted to use the tradition of making a new year’s resolution as weapon to beat themselves up for falling short of being their idealized version of themselves.  If the latter describes you, then I please let me offer the words of advice made famous by the comedian Bob Newhart: “Stop it!” 

Seriously though, if you can’t yet silence your inner tormentors then at least stop listening to them for this moment and remind yourself that you are a child of God. You are loved unconditionally, and the fact that you are in this room today proves that you want to draw closer to God, and that you want to be a faithful disciple of Jesus and, in this very moment, you are doing your best. We don’t berate a child who is making great progress on doing long division for not understanding how compound interest works, do we? No, we don’t because that would be harmful to the child’s mental health and counterproductive to the goal becoming skilled at math. So why, then, do so many of us think that bullying ourselves into doing better will make us better people? 
    
So that said, I have a couple alternative new year’s resolutions to suggest: 

1) Be kinder to yourself this year. Give yourself permission to decline requests because you have something else on your schedule that day, and then make sure that something else is self-care. Do whatever helps you re-center, re-energize, and hangout with God.  

2) Stay in Your Lane. Now hear me out; I didn’t like that expression the first time I heard it.  To me, it sounded a lot like “keep your head down” or “mind your own business,” but as I was meditating on the Matthew passage this week, those words kept coming back to me. And so, I began pondering what staying in one’s lane could mean in the context of that story. See, I was taught in seminary that when we read scriptures—especially when they are familiar stories—that we should approach them with curiosity. Ask ourselves, what is it that I haven’t noticed before? We should read the text in many different locations and ponder how different contexts illuminate different aspects. We should pay attention to what comes before and after, compare it to similar statements and stories found in and outside of the Bible, do some research on the original audience, get out maps, and ask questions we’ve never asked before.  Such as, what would it mean for John and Jesus to stay in their lanes, and could that teach us something that impacts our lives today? 

You know, sometimes I feel a bit bad for John. Talk about doing your best to live up to your parents’ expectations all while living in a family member’s shadow. And what were these expectations? According to Luke, an angel told his dad, the priest Zechariah, that John “will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.  He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”  (Luke 1:15-17)

John looks to me like a textbook example of an over-performing only child raised by older parents who set high behavioral standards ‘cause John took the no alcohol part of the instructions and took it up a notch. He “wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist,” and instead of bread he lived on “locusts and wild honey.” (Matthew 3:4) Way before his slightly younger cousin Jesus stepped into public ministry, John was already out in the wilderness of Judea, preaching repentance and baptizing crowds of people in Jordan—across socio-economic and political lines, including Pharisees, Sadducees, soldiers, and tax collectors.

John was a superb teacher, and many came to him for advice. 

When “the crowds asked him, 'What then should we do?' In reply he said to them, 'Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.' Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, 'Teacher, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.' Soldiers also asked him, 'And we, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.' (Luke 3:10-14) A lot of people were thinking that John was the Messiah, but “John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”(Luke 3:15-16) 

And then we come to the moment in today’s lectionary text. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each tell it a bit differently, but Matthew says that “Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented.” (Matthew 3:13-15)

If you go searching for scholarly commentaries on Jesus’ baptism, you’ll find a lot of theologians tying themselves into knots trying to shoehorn this story into neat and tidy doctrinal statements. But there are so many hard questions to address. Why did Jesus need or want to be baptized? What exactly happened in that moment when the Holy Spirit came down, and does this mean that the Spirit wasn’t in Jesus already? Was the voice from heaven heard by anyone other than Jesus (Matthew says say, but Mark and Luke’s versions leave one wondering)? Had there been a possibility that God wouldn’t be pleased with Jesus? How do we make sense of this story when talk about trinitarian teachings? What does this mean in terms of the meaning and protocols around baptism? 

Yeah, so, let’s not open that box today. 

Instead, let’s turn again to John, whose birth and ministry were foretold by angels, who is trying so hard to live a righteous life and to turn others righteous living, yet he sees himself as unworthy to even untie the dirt and sweat caked cord on his cousin Jesus’ sandal. And Jesus comes to him and basically says, “You stay in your lane, and I’ll stay in mine. Your calling is to call folks to repentance and baptize them. So get over get over all this ‘I’m not worthy self-talk’ and baptize me. My job is something else, so, no, I’m not here to baptize you.” 

Does this resonate with anyone this morning? It sure does with me. Every single person in this room—so that includes you—who desires to live a life pleasing to God has been give a specific set of gifts for the road they are on. The good news is that God doesn’t expect you or me to excel at everything or to actively respond to every problem in this world. We are only asked to answer our calling and to faithfully stay in that lane. Don’t think of life as a race; we are not in competition with the folks to our left and right. They are being sent on a different journey.  And if they try a pull a John the Baptist and say “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly do this. It really should be you,” remember that without boundaries, we can’t move forward. If it isn’t in your lane, you can follow Jesus’ example and say “No.” 

Now here’s the challenging part. If it is your lane—if it is next big thing in the middle of the road God has called you down, then don’t let fears of inadequacy or the knowledge that, yes, it is asking a lot, stop you from facing it. In the longrun, running away from our calling leaves us feeling lost. That said, taking regular breaks for self-care is not the same thing as quitting. In fact, being kind to ourselves helps us to be better people.  
  
Now, yes, sometimes “Be kinder to yourself” and “stay in your lane” are inadequate words of advice when trying to figure out what we should be doing with our lives. But, sometimes, they are exactly what someone needs to hear.  Amen 

New Year's update from Ljubljana

Hi all,

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Haven't blogged in a long time, so figured I should at least give a quick summary of the last 6 months of 2019.  So, let's see...

June: Movers came and packed up nearly all my material possessions, sending some to a storage warehouse and more pounds than I care to admit (I refuse to leave behind my missiology books, and my husband insists on taking his piano and sheet music) on a ship bound for Slovenia.  As the truck rolled out, husband caught his flight to start his new assignment in Ljubljana. I then flew to Congo, and Mom took E and the dog for the summer.

July:  Finally got the official piece of paper saying I'd completed my doctorate program. 

August: Arrived in the charming city of Ljubljana, Slovenia and began my new role as shepherd of the Anglican-Episcopal Church in Ljubljana (one of three anglophone congregations here, the other two being a Catholic parish and an evangelical

international church).

September: Juggled unpacking, figuring out new city, trying to learn Slovenian, getting daughter signed up for activities, dealing with the dog's heart problem, and a bunch of other stuff (like FPM management, tasks for Bishop Mande, medical appointments, etc.). Met a nationally-famous professor, and he invited me to give a guest lecture on racism at the University of Ljubljana (in the Erasmus program).  Also went to Hungary to attend the Church of England's regional synod. 

October/November: Kept juggling responsibilities while keeping up family morale by doing a bunch of regional tourism. Mom came to visit and road trip with us over E's fall break. Found out that my thesis was selected by the American Society of Missiology for publication in their monograph book series. Started tedious process of reformatting thesis to publisher's specs.

December: All of the above plus a bunch of holiday events (and baking), and Stu and I put together a well-attended Christmas Eve service (helps to be married to the congregation's organist).

view from top of hill not far from our house

I calculate that in the past 6 months I've spent time in 9 countries (including brief layovers would bring it up to 13). 

2019 brought a lot of changes and surprises, and, all things considered, it was a good year for the Walters-Denyer clan.  I'm not yet sure what 2020 will look like in terms of my personal and professional life, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Lots of love,

Taylor

Dr. Denyer

It's official: I've checked off another item on my bucket list!!!  Thanks to everyone who helped make this day happen.  My evaluating committee encouraged me to publish my submission, so once I get settled into my new life in Slovenia I'll begin seriously exploring getting it turned into a book.  

Love to all,

Taylor 

Being an Awkward Ally

My new sweatshirt (UMC Baptismal vows).
Click here to order one for yourself. 

This being Pride Month, I thought it might be helpful for some of my readers to know that at least twice this past year I have unwittingly used painfully outdated terms in the midst of conversations with friends who are part of the LGBTQI+ community. Neither time was I called out, but I spotted the micro-cringe and realized I’d clearly just messed up. You see, I’m in catch-up mode at the moment--having a bit of a Rip Van Winkle experience. 

In high school and undergrad I did my best to attend all the awareness-building and sensitivity training events that I could on all sorts of subjects. I still remember my freshman year hearing the word “hermaphrodite” for the first time; it was used as a self-label by a young adult who openly spoke of their experience growing up in a body that didn’t cleanly fit in the traditional male/female boxes. That testimony greatly helped me rethink what I thought I knew about gender and sexual orientation. A couple years later, I joined a congregation that hosted a support group for Trans persons. One evening the congregation was invited to a special listening event, where members of that support group shared with us personal accounts of their struggles. Over 15 years later, I shared what I’d learned from those talks with an Algerian who was leading a rapidly growing congregation composed almost entirely of recently baptized Algerians. This was the first time he had heard about such issues, and we pondered together the pastoral implications. What advice would he give if someone in his congregations revealed to him that they weren’t actually the sex or gender that they presented to the community? What would he advise them on the topic of dating and marriage? I am convinced that by having the courage to engage my colleague in that conversation, I planted seeds that will make a huge difference one day for LGBTQI+ persons in his community.  

But here’s the thing: I engaged in that conversation having spent the past decade living in three African countries where talk about such issues remains rather taboo. Sure, I learned/studied a ton on the topics of colonialism and racism and facilitating healthy interfaith conversations, but during that time I failed to keep up with the changing conversations around sex and gender. I only found out a few months ago that the term hermaphrodite has become offensive (We should say intersex instead). And, I kid you not, I’ve had so few conversations about transgender issues that recently I actually accidentally said ‘transexual’ at a church meeting (I partly blame that on the fact that the song Sweet Transvestite was stuck in my head that day, but still, that’s not acceptable— for that matter, neither is using the word transvestite unless you are reclaiming it for yourself).

So, does that make me a crappy ally? In some ways, yes, it does.

One of the things my deep dive into anti-racism books has taught me is that we all were raised in the toxic sludge of racism (and sexism and host of other isms). While it is easy to believe that racism is bad, purging our minds of every single unexamined racist assumption is a journey that takes a lifetime. If we beat ourselves up or lash out every time someone calls us out for saying or doing something that perpetuates a racist system, we won’t get very far down the road.  It is much healthier to admit to ourselves that we are racist anti-racists, and then get on with the work of becoming less racist. I assert the same logic can be applied to all forms of allyship.     

I’m not sure if I’ve yet earned the privilege of calling myself a LGBTQI+ ally. I’m not even sure if ally is a label one is allowed to give oneself or if it must be bestowed. But I do know that I’m making an effort to do better, and from the depths of my heart I say Happy Pride Month.

Love, 

Taylor    

A Palm Sunday Reflection

The following is the reflection I shared at the April 12, 2019 Friday chapel service for Course of Study students at Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC. Since a number of those there requested a copy, I decided to share it on my blog.  

Course of Study Worship Service

Wesley Seminary Chapel

April 12, 2019 (Approaching Palm Sunday)

Text: Luke 19: 28-40

It is wonderful to be gathered in this space surrounded by those who have answered the call to dedicate their lives to spreading the Good News of reconciliation that is possible through our Messiah Jesus Christ. I got back to DC last night after a two-week marathon of participating in United Methodist mission conferences. The North East Jurisdiction held their annual Mission Academy, which I highly recommend you all attend next year. And, Global Ministries celebrated the bicentennial of Methodist mission societies with a phenomenal gathering of folks coming to reflect upon the past, present, and future of the missional activities of the people called The United Methodist Church. I come back from these gatherings with my cup overflowing. I testify to you today that the denomination we love is blessed with many, many brilliant servant leaders of all ages—both laity and clergy. I testify to lives and communities transformed as a result of United Methodists taking leaps of faith, crossing social and economic boundaries, and speaking prophetic words. I want you to know that these conferences were not fluffy don’t-open-any- closets propaganda events. They were spaces where we could celebrate and confess our past and present actions and inactions and where we could have the hard talks about what course corrections must be made in order to be better disciples.  

John Wesley taught that a Methodist preacher should be ready to preach, pray or die at a moment’s notice. So, when I received the message while at these meetings asking if I could preach at this service, I answered affirmatively. In lieu of a normal sermon, however, I’d like to share some reflections on how we preach on Palm Sunday and throughout Holy Week.

But first, a word for preachers about what Palm Sunday reminds us. The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Jesus rode into Jerusalem the “whole multitude of disciples” spread their cloaks on the road (knowing full well that their cloak—possibly their only cloak—could ruined by doing so). As Jesus approached “the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" (Luke 19:37-38)

One thing I’ve wondered for years is how many –or what percentage--of those who placed their cloaks on the road that day were among those shouting “Crucify him!” later that week vs how many of them followed Jesus to the cross and witnessed his clothing being divided by the soldiers. One of the reasons I wonder this because, as a second-generation Methodist pastor, I know too well that a pastor shouldn’t take at face value praise or rejection from one’s congregants. There is a strong probability that same person who lavishes you with praise at your arrival to the appointment—for you are so much better than that previous pastor—will be the first person to loudly complain about you the moment your ministry doesn’t match what they wanted you to do. While listening to feedback to become more effective pastors is important, we must also resist the temptation of prioritizing trying to be who the congregants want us to be over listening deeply to God’s call and being faithful to it.     

In her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor critiques what she calls a “full solar Christianity,” and she lifts up the holiness of literal and metaphorical darkness. She asserts that too many of our churches focus solely on praising God, making joyful noises. We like our sanctuaries to be full of light and our music and preaching upbeat. But not every moment of our lives feels warm and sunny. For the person grieving, the person suffering, the person in distress stepping inside of a building where the unwritten rule is that you must plaster a smile on your face, that you must sing songs of praise, that you must ‘get over’ your grief quickly and be thankful for what you have or else you are somehow failing to be a faithful Christian—for these such persons solar churches merely heighten their feelings of alienation, of not belonging to the community of faith. Solar congregations do serious spiritual harm to those who most need acceptance and healing. We must, therefore, stop equating darkness with absence of God and learn to affirm and embrace the sacredness of the literal and metaphorical dark. [And, yes, the ways we continue to use words like “dark” and “white” in our churches does undermine our anti-racism efforts] We must become a church that recognizes that God is God in the morning, in the evening, and in the middle of the night. I want to share with you some of her words from this book.

“I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.”  

“There is a light that shines in the darkness, which is only visible there.” 

“I wish I could turn to the church for help, but so many congregations are preoccupied with keeping the lights on right now that the last thing they want to talk about is how to befriend the dark.” 

“As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. ... new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” 

“I always wondered why it took "three days" for significant things to happen in the Bible--Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus spent three days in the tomb, Paul spent three days blind in Damascus--and now I know. From earliest times, people learned that was how long they had to wait in the dark before the sliver of the new moon appeared in the sky. For three days every month they practiced resurrection.” 

  

Siblings in Christ, hear what is being said. Good News comes in many forms. Not every sermon you preach has to be celebratory.  There is a time to mourn, a time for doubt. There are times of suffering. The Good News is that love remains in the darkest hours, and not only does it remain it can be experienced more powerfully in those sacred times, for it is in the sacred darkness that miracles occur.      

For those Exhausted this Ash Wednesday...

Photo by Yosh Ginsu on Unsplash

My friends,

I love Ash Wednesday.  Those of you who have known me for awhile and/or read my 2018 Ash Wednesday post know how sacred this day is to me. But today, I'm feeling numb and exhausted. And so, I'm going to take my own advice from Saturday's post and step aside from my podium and amplify someone else's words of wisdom.  Please check out Candice Marie Benbow's 2017 reflection For Sisters with Nothing Left to Give Up for Lent.  It spoke to me, and I pray it speaks to you too.

Taylor

Being an Intersectional Ally #GC2019

Author's confession (March 21, 2019): Since publishing this post that went surprisingly viral, I've been taught about the history of the term "intersectionality" and how law professor Kimberle Crenshaw defined the word when she created it in 1989. Now knowing this, I repent of my participation in the appropriation/morphing of her word. I'm still trying to figure out what alternative word to use for recognizing that issues of discrimination/marginalization intersect and that we must examine the layers/intersections of oppression whenever we address social justice issues.
_____________________________________________________


My UMC companions in this journey,

I know you are probably still emotionally raw from GC2019, but there’s something we need to talk about, and we need to talk about it now before we get too far down the road in our “what’s next?” planning. Please, please hear what I’m about to say as coaching from a missiologist who applauds your passion and wants to help you maximize your effectiveness. 

Listening can be liberating

Everything I want to teach or remind you in this blog post is stuff that countless folks smarter and wiser than I am have expressed more competently than I am about to do—and many did so generations ago.

I’m not even the first to apply the assertions to what has been happening the past few days in The UMC (read, for example, the Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey's public Facebook post).  I am writing this because, if you won’t listen to the Rev. Dr. Lightsey, who is a highly accomplished scholar and author, and the first out Black lesbian elder in the UMC, perhaps you’ll listen to me. After all, I present as a non-threatening slender and porcelain skinned cisgender heterosexual female. As a POC friend with the body of an offensive linesman once pointed out to me, all this plus my “morbidly sweetened personality” gives me a cloak-and-dagger superpower that he does not have. That is to say, I can get away with saying the exact same thing that friends and colleagues have said and not only be heard but come out miraculously unscathed. I don’t get labeled as “angry” or “divisive.” At worst, I’m branded a maverick and given the cold shoulder by those who believe (often correctly) that I'm talking about them. 

This specific power/privilege of mine has its roots in the intersection of racism and sexism in America. It is not my fault that I have it, and there’s almost nothing I could do to get rid of it,* but it is my responsibility to study the historical/sociological reasons why I have it and how, as follower of Jesus who is committed to being on the side of the marginalized, to appropriately leverage and check that power. And so, I’ve done a lot of reading and listening on the topics of racism, sexism, colonialism, and a host of other isms, including those that most directly impact the lives of GBLTQI+ persons. I’ve read about the importance of recognizing how forms of oppression overlap and interact, how a person can be simultaneously oppressed and an oppressor but never neutral,** and how failing to explore the complex intersections of power and forms of oppression often results in “liberating” one group at the detriment of another.***  I've stared into the mirror and called myself out many times, and I welcome receiving constructive criticism as I continue to learn and grow.   

And, yes, I share all of this mostly just to ease you into what I really want to say, and I’m saying it primarily to my friends who benefit from the most number of privileges (especially, but not exclusively, to white cisgender heterosexual persons):

Your privileges in this society might not make you the best person to try to pull together all the coalitions, sit at the table where decisions are being made, or be a core member of the dream team that leads us into the emergence of something radically new. 

Please, please consider stepping aside from the doorways and podiums you probably don’t even realize you are dominating and fall inline behind the folks who have so much more right to a place at the head of the table where these decisions are to be made. Yes, come and bring to the table your resources (material and financial) and your connections, but then go sit quietly in the corner of the room unless/until those with more claim to the table request your input. Trust me on this:**** while at first it may feel disorienting and somehow wrong to not be the one mobilizing the troops and leading the charge, it is liberating to take a back seat and instead focus your efforts on amplifying and supporting someone else’s voice and vision.

Again, I know this is hard to hear. And I deeply appreciate all that you have done, are doing, and will do in your ministry and advocacy work. I too am wound up with passion and ready to mobilize my people and shout "Allons-y!"  But I know that ultimately that wouldn't be helpful to the cause. 

And so, I humbly suggest that, instead, let us put our names on multiple ally sign-up lists, and wait to be told where and when to show up and to whom to write out the check.


An intersectional ally and your friend,

Taylor


* Except perhaps shaving my head and dressing/presenting as “butch” or an androgynous person.  And to my white male friends: it isn't your fault that society assumes that you are inherently smarter, more competent, and a better preacher/leader than the rest of us. Just don't be fooled into believing that you are. Leverage your power to hand others the microphone and to publicly admire their work (and, yes, this includes demanding they get at least equal pay and appointment opportunities).

** There is so much to unpack in this statement—especially when we talk about how to be a faithful ally when one marginalized group does harm to another marginalized group.  During GC2019, this question moved from the theoretical to the pragmatic for me. Also: I highly recommend (re)reading Albert Memmi's The Colonizer and The Colonized when wrestling with the myth of neutrality when living in a society with oppressors and those being oppressed.  

***For example: the racist history of the women’s suffrage movement in the USA.  

****Why should you consider trusting me? Perhaps because I’m a recovering white savior who now serves as the Rev. Dr. Mande Muyombo's (UMC Bishop of North Katanga) assistant. I feel less angsty, more at peace, and more involved in a mission to transform the world by doing tedious tasks for him (e.g. proofreading letters, filling out grant forms, creating Power Point slides, etc.) than I ever did when I was trying to be the sort of activist who gets written about in history books.