Eleven O'Clock on Sunday Morning
By Rev. Dr. Karin A. Case
November 01, 2009
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Lessons: Acts 2: 1-21
Most of us have heard Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation that “eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” He spoke these words in 1953, out of the depths of segregation, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, a full year before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that began to change the face of public education. More than a decade before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. Segregation and exclusion were both the norm at the law. And so it is particularly painful to hear King’s indictment—that the church in that era—not drinking fountains, or swimming pools, or farms or factories or country clubs, not schools or neighborhoods, but the church—is a bastion of segregation.
“I am ashamed,” preached King, “that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in Christian America.” Today we might argue with King’s appraisal that America is “Christian,” but we can hear the pain, disappointment, even agony in his words. Ashamed. Appalled. These are strong, prophetic words. Bitter medicine.
How is it, King wonders, that the freedom we find in Christ somehow fails to express itself fully in the institution of the church? How is it that the freedom we know in Christ as we come to the welcome table, fails to transform us completely? Worse, is it possible that the church even contributed (in King’s era) to keeping segregation in place? Or in our era, that it helps maintain the subtler forms of structural racism?
Let us ask ourselves directly whether King’s words are still true today. A half-century later, is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning still the most segregated hour in America? And if so, what are we doing about it? If we know the freedom of Christ deep inside us—and I believe we do—how are we expressing that freedom in the world? It’s a big question that doesn’t just pertain to the culture and complexion of our churches. It’s question about how we live our faith.
King was disappointed, ashamed, appalled, because––like us––he knew firsthand the transforming power of Christ. And like us, he was rooted in the Biblical narratives of promise, of freedom, liberation and radical inclusion. And it’s painful when our churches do not fully express Christ’s wondrous, revolutionary ways of being.
One of our foundational stories about the Holy Spirit is the one we read this morning, the story of Pentecost. A cacophonous-confusing, multicultural-miraculous advent of Spirit. The post-resurrection community is gathered and they experience something breathtaking. Tongues are loosed and ears are opened and barriers of language and culture and race are swept away by the wind of the Spirit.
The author of Acts writes, “And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” How is it that despite our differences of culture and language and race, we experience the same powerful Spirit in a way all can understand?
So, let me ask you. Is it because of the Holy Spirit that people of every culture, language and race are able to understand one another? Or is it the presence of diverse people of many regions, nations and languages that makes it possible for the gathered community to perceive the Holy Spirit? Is it because of God that we understand our common humanity and our shared faith? Or is it because of our wonderful variety and diversity—every one of us a child of God—that we are able to see the Spirit more clearly?
So what’s the problem, you may ask? You might say: We’re progressive people. Our doors are open wide. Our table is set for all. Is racism really a problem for us—right here in the People’s Republic of Cambridge?
Friends, there’s so much I want to say to you: the words just spill out. I want to say that racism is not just about personal bigotry and individual acts, but about systemic and cultural patterns we all participate in, whether we want to or not. I want to say that we are still very much in the thick of it.
Did you know, for example, that the Harvard Square clergy Association is made up mostly of white folks? And there’s a separate Black Ministers Association? We white clergy know this is a problem. We’re trying to get together. Mayor Denise Simmons is tremendously helpful in providing a place at City Hall for clergy to gather. But we’re not there yet.
Did you know that in 2008 the Southern Poverty Law Center counted 926 white supremacist and hate groups active in the United States, with thirteen right here in Massachusetts? Did you know that just last week, Morris Dees, founder of SPLC, had another death threat—presumably because of the success SPLC has had in prosecuting hate crimes. You must know that within the last year synagogues and mosques in Massachusetts have been desecrated. That anti-Semitic words are scrawled in high school bathrooms—it happened in my kids’ school.
Do you know that the mortgage crisis that is affecting all of us is disproportionately affecting people of color, because they have been intentionally targeted with high-risk loan offers? Are you aware that if you’ve ever lived in a community where public education is funded by property taxes and which schools get how much funding are determined by geographical lines, you have unwittingly participated in a system that disproportionately favors whites and affluent people?
So, what does this have to do with us in the church? Racism is the culture we live in and the air we breath. And unless we’re doing something actively to resist, to challenge, to dismantle the system, then we are complicit.
But there’s good news! Friends, the Holy Spirit will work with anything she can get. She will come in at the slightest opportunity. Last night I heard something that sounded suspiciously like a mouse in the walls of our house. I confess that I was a bit nonplussed. I’ve told you about the foundation work we had done over the summer—I was feeling smug and mouse-proof. But you know mice—they will come in through the tiniest hole. The Holy Spirit is like that—determined to find an opportunity. She will rush in if you give her an opening. She will rattle the windows and shake the sashes, and breathe a fresh wind of understanding into any old house.
So, What are we going to do about it? Let’s make a practice of giving the Holy Spirit something to work with. Let me offer three simple suggestions. First, look for those places in your life where the Holy Spirit has already found a way in. Look carefully for those places where you have been opened or transformed. What’s your story? Your transformation may or may not have something explicitly to do with race or culture. But look for clues. Where have you got it going with the Holy Spirit? Ask yourself and then tell your story.
Second, take yourself out of your racial comfort zone and see what you learn about yourself, the world, about humanity, vulnerability, or openness. Maybe this is something you already do on a daily or weekly basis. Maybe you are out of your racial comfort zone right now. Again, reflect on what you learn. Where do you meet God when the comfort of culture, or language, or status is stripped away, when what you have to work with is your basic humanity and the grace of God? Tell us your story. We need to hear your voice.
And third, despite our Pentecost story about bridging language barriers, when we are dismantling the edifice of racism, it helps to have common language and understanding. What do we mean by race? What is racism? How does operate in our lives? As a congregation, through our renewed commitment to sacred conversations on race, we’ve begun to take some steps to create that common language and common understanding. We are on the threshold of another opportunity to gather the tools, build the common vocabulary and shared understanding to look directly at how race functions here and in the world. In our First Fridays film series beginning on Nov 13th, we will take a look at the PBS series, Race: The Power of an Illusion. This is simply the next step on a journey we have already begun. Sometimes the going is slow.
Another thing Dr. King wrote is that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Work for justice can feel sloggingly, torturously slow. I confess that I’m not too fond of long arcs. I’d rather be part of a dazzling moment—the mosh-pit, slam dance moment of Pentecost wonder. The exciting explosion of Spirit.
A couple of years ago, I saw something wondrous. We were driving north in New Hampshire for a weekend of hiking. As we rounded a curve into the valley at Franconia Notch, we saw the most brilliant double rainbow I have ever experienced. A half dozen cars were pulled over by the side of the road in stunned amazement. The colors were so vibrantly intense, the light so brilliant, that it was unlike anything I have ever seen. Not even like a rainbow. Exponentially more intense than any other mere rainbow, it seemed a numinous in-breaking from another world.
Friends, this is the arc we are after! The blazing glory of God’s many colors. Breathtaking in intensity. The kind of color and light that opens you up for a lifetime. Will we see the day when Christians everywhere worship together in a spirit of openness and understanding? When the Spirit that looses tongues and breaks the barriers of language and culture and race, will be alive in us and among us, expressed in everything we do?
What will, what commitment, what effort, what acts of kindness and courage, what wind of the Holy Spirit would it take, brothers and sisters, for God working in and through us to transform eleven o’clock on Sunday morning? A single hour?