Being Woke III

I ended last week’s piece with the therapeutic nature of being woke. The opposite of being woke is being indifferent, and as far as I can tell, being indifferent kills the human spirit. Being indifferent can be very damaging. Being indifferent distorts our view of the other. Being indifferent is a sickness in itself - that is why therapy becomes essential. The therapy I am referring to doesn’t require any hospitalization or a stint at a rehab, but the kind of therapy that awakens a particular consciousness in you. It is this consciousness that frees you to fight injustice because it makes you acutely aware of all the ills of the past, the ills that surround you, the ills being dished out to you or the ills being meted out to someone else.

I learned that children cannot conceptualize racism. They learn it from adults. Children who grow up in an environment that endorses this kind of practice sooner or later begin to express similar sentiments. Racism, they say, is a learned behavior. The fact that children grow to learn it doesn’t mean they cannot grow out of it. People do grow out of it because a single experience can become so transformational that it becomes difficult for people to continue to believe in racism.

In the gospel of Matthew is a story about Jesus and a Syrophoenician woman. Jesus was in the region of Tyre and Sidon, a Gentile enclave north of Israel. Bear in mind that the Jews and Gentiles didn’t have anything in common. In fact, the Jews considered the Gentiles as dogs. While Jesus was there, a Syrophoenician woman came crying to him “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” But Jesus didn’t answer this poor woman.

The woman kept following them and crying out for help for her daughter. That obviously irritated the disciples so they asked Jesus to send her away. In response, Jesus tells the woman that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The woman persisted. “Lord, help me.” Her humble cry for help was met with a racist response from Jesus “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” Ouch!!

But this woman wasn’t going to give an inch. She wasn’t going to let that insult slide. She agreed with what Jesus said. But then she also landed this blow “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” If you have owned a dog before or own a dog, the thought by this woman wouldn’t appear strange to you because my daughter’s dog, Ranger, often eats the crumbs that fall from the dining table.

Jesus’ only response to this powerful statement by the woman was, great is your faith, your request has been granted. Her daughter was healed that very moment. The reason why we are interested in the story isn’t so much about the healing of the daughter but the healing of Jesus himself. That was a woke moment for Jesus. Jesus came to realize that faith not only transcends boundaries, but inherent racism has no place in the new dispensation in which he was investing his very life. In fact, the way in which all others saw the Gentiles shouldn’t be the same way in which he saw the Gentiles - especially the poor woman.

In a way, this incident isn’t so surprising to me because it simply tells of how deep-seated the scourge of racism is. But in spite of its deep-seated nature, you only need one transformational moment to awaken you to the reality of the other, the presence of the other, the gift of the other and the value of the other. You only need one transformational moment to be eternally aware of the other. And when Jesus was awakened to that reality, he fully embraced that woke moment.

In my sermon last Sunday, I told a famous story of the Buddha walking on the road when someone saw his radiant face and confident gaze. This person asked the Buddha, “Who are you? A god?” The Buddha responded, “No. I am awake.” Being awake isn’t any different from being woke, it is a matter of being aware of what’s going on around you, and that includes the injustices that you see. The point here is that when you are awake, you shine with a light that sees the darkness of the human soul.

I wonder if I have shared this story before. Just as I am the first African American to serve as Rector of this wonderful congregation, I was the first African American to serve as a clergy in the 155-year history of my former parish-St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. Before the search process, the Rector and the parish made a conscious decision to hire a person of color to serve as an Associate. I was blessed to have been called to serve at that congregation. Do I consider my call as fulfilling a DEI requirement? Absolutely not. This was a congregation which was very much awake to the reality that God’s beautiful rainbow, includes people of all shades of color and that other voices should be welcomed within the sanctuary.

I know I have shared this part of my story at St. Paul’s several times but here we go again. A couple of months after my arrival, a parishioner who had refused to honor his pledge, stated that he had decided not to honor his pledge because the Rector hired a person of color. The brave Rector’s response was that ‘Thank you, we will do just fine.’ This was a Rector who was awake, very much aware that he saw racism for what it was, awake enough to understand that we cannot be complicit in the bigotry of others.

Emma Goldman, a writer, once wrote that “The greatest obstacle to freedom is the willingness of people to accept injustice.” To accept injustice or to accept the trappings of injustice in any way, shape, or form, is to be complicit in the perpetuation of injustice. And nothing so depresses me as those who believe that the injustices of the past and present should be glossed over. Or that children shouldn’t even learn about our past or that certain books should be banned from libraries. What are we afraid of?

If racism is a learned behavior, then it stands to reason that some want this behavior to continue. And if that is the case, how does that build a thriving community? How does that create the equal society that we aspire to? To build a community that is awake, the community has to be aware enough to understand the horrors of the past and learn from it. That is what it means to be awake-to be open to an awareness that stifles any injustice, an awareness that eradicates injustice.

Manny+

(This is the third of four writings on this topic. I didn't realize that there was more material to cover, so please bear with me)

(Artwork: “The One with the Crumby Dog” by Ally Barrett)