Grace, Hatred, and Racism

Reared in a Methodist tradition, I believe that God’s Grace is available to everyone.  God’s Prevenient Grace is all around us and available to anyone who will have it. It is a gift from God, readily available, and has absolutely nothing to do with us. As we accept that Gift of Grace,  God’s Justifying Grace begins to work on us, bringing us in line with God’s Divine Will for us, making us completely new creatures within the Will of God.   God’s Sanctifying Grace then continues to change us and empower us to walk more closely in the Will of God.

Grace is always there; the question is whether or not we will latch on to it and if we do, whether we will surrender ourselves to it so it can change us.

As I listen to the news reports being spun to paint a homegrown terrorist as some sort of victim, and as I watch the majority of my white friends remain painfully silent on this massacre, this racially charged American act of terrorism against Americans of African descent -- as I listen, it occurs to me that grace, hatred and racism share some characteristics.  In the American spirit, psyche, and ethos,  all abound, and all are available to anyone who will latch on to them.  Once we reach out and grab onto them, whether we grab on to Grace, hatred, or racism, -- whatever we grab onto begins to work on us.  Grace will begin to bring us in line with God’s Divine Will for us, hatred will bring us in line with scorn and disdain for things not pleasing to us, and racism will bring us in line with an ideology that people who share some of our genetic characteristics are somehow superior to other humans.  As we continue on, whether walking in Grace, in hatred, or in racism, we begin to change and to conform to its power over us – Sanctifying Grace will empower us to walk in the will of God, while Horrifying Hatred or Reprehensible Racism will distort and deform one’s human nature to fit the will of the demonic forces in which they have their genesis.

Let's be clear.  This terrorist is not a victim.  The nine saints who welcomed him into Bible study and were killed because of their kindness -- those are the only victims.  At the end of the day, the homegrown terrorist had a choice.  He CHOSE to embrace hatred and racism, he CHOSE the resulting deformity of spirit, and he CHOSE to act from that distorted and deformed place, rather than to seek wholeness.  At the end of the day, the young white terrorist lived in an environment where hatred and racism freely abound.  He lived in an environment where the “confederate flag” is still flown, and where a legacy of enslaving human beings is somehow conflated with and glorified as history.  Again, as a point of clarity, what's being highlighted is a history of slavery and abuse, and there's nothing to be glorified about that.   While there may be some valid discussion over the original intent of this flag, the reality remains that “The Stars and Bars,” in whatever its present iteration may be, has always been a symbol of the pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist, secessionist, Confederate States of America.  In the debate over what the flag in SC means and whether the state of South Carolina has the right to fly it, no one mentions the fact that “The Stars and Bars” experienced a resurgence in popularity during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and became an unofficial emblem of the segregationist movement.  FOR THAT REASON ALONE, the State of South Carolina needs to take the first step and remove the flag from its official buildings. This would be a show of respect to its African American citizens murdered by a terrorist bent on starting a race war, and it would, I believe, send a message that the atmosphere of hatred and racism is no longer to be tolerated.

Like Grace, Hatred and Racism have no intrinsic physical form. You can see their effects, you can sense their presence, but you can’t reach out and touch them.  This may be why those who are not people of color often believe that “too much is made of the race issue,” or think it’s nonexistent because “we have a black President.”

Which is sort of like saying “I prayed to Jesus last year, and I was really sincere.  So today I’m gonna give my son a gun to kill your mother, but it’s ok, because I prayed last year.”  God’s Grace is given to the humble, and is shown to be sufficient for us when it is made perfect in weakness.  It’s a gift from God, clearly not something to be claimed or appropriated by humans.  It’s not something with or about which we can boast; it is, if you will, an inside job.  But Hatred and Racism – these are humanly (or demonically) sourced qualities, and they will flourish where they are neither destroyed nor, at the very least, corrected.  They, like sin and all things with an evil genesis, must be resisted – they are things for which we must always be on guard.

And we’re not anymore. We’ve grown complacent, we’ve fallen asleep, and just like those dear people innocently let a madman into their midst, we have allowed hatred and racism to come sit and sup with us.  We may not recognize them, or we may think they look a little off but be reluctant to say anything about them.  But we have to learn, folks.  We have to learn that injustice anywhere is still a threat to justice everywhere. We have to believe Jesus was sincere when He said that whatever we did to the least of these, we did to Him. 

So what’s it gonna be?  Are we going to choose to be filled with God's grace, quietly but resolutely empowered to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God?  Can we see "the least of these" not only as poor people in far off lands, but as those who are marginalized and abused by our very own political and social systems?  Or are we going to succumb to the cancer of hatred and the lie of racism?  Are we willing to expose and eradicate the latter two so the former might grow within us?

Or are we just gonna lay low and act like none of this has any meaning?  They’re all there:  Grace, Hatred, and Racism, and they all have the power to make us and mold us and change us into something new.  Like the terrorist who murdered the Emmanuel 9, we get to choose what we grasp and hold onto.