Rev. James Warren
Bloomington First Christian Church
As a father of 10 culturally diverse children, the senior pastor of First Christian drew upon his unique experiences to offer a message of love and unity at NIOTBN's July 11 vigil for the victims of Minnesota, Louisiana, and Dallas.
Good evening, and welcome to this prayer vigil. I truly thank each of you for being here and for being committed to making our community better, stronger, and ever more united.
Let me tell you how I’m feeling tonight. I’m tired. I’m just plain tired. Aren’t you? Every few days we hear of another tragic event. Young black men killed in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis. Police officers shot in Dallas. How long has all of this been going on? I can’t remember. It feels like forever. Certainly much too long. And I’m tired of it. How many more have to die? How many more prayer vigils will we have to hold? How long will this go on? I’m tired of it. Kelley Becker, our Associate Pastor, preached last Sunday and articulated for me what I’m feeling, and what many of you are feeling. I’m just plain tired. Aren’t you? Something has to change.
Let me begin by telling you a little something about myself, specifically about my family. I do this not because my family is anything special, but because of the formative impact my wife and children have had on me and my life. My wife and I have ten children. Whenever I tell someone that, I immediately learn something about that person. Almost everyone will look at me wide-eyed and say with a hint of sympathetic weariness something like, “Oh my.” But if the person is Roman Catholic, she’ll undoubtedly say, “God bless you.”
My wife and I have ten children. Our oldest two children are birth children. Then we adopted a girl from India and another from China. Next came two African American boys from Chicago. Our youngest four were born in Ethiopia: twins who are eleven and two girls who are ten.
You see, my wife and I have not been disinterested outside observers of the role race plays in our country. We’ve been in the midst of it. However, I don’t for a minute pretend to understand the complex issue of race in America. I’ve lived a privileged life because of my race, and I know it. But I’ve seen what my children have endured. My wife shared some of our family’s experiences at a recent Black Lives Matter forum. Inasmuch as I can, I’ve witnessed the ongoing, pervasive, and negative role race plays in our country.
I start this evening with my family because I believe that’s where we must begin. Change must begin with our families, with those who are closest to us, with our friends and neighbors. Only as change occurs in these intimate circles can real change affect our nation.
Let me share with you something that Katherine, our oldest daughter, wrote on Facebook today. She was responding to a long-time friend’s post about his family and ours. Katherine was born in India, is twenty-four, just received a graduate degree, and is in her first real, full-time job. I feel like shouting, “Praise the Lord!” when I say that! She did her master’s project on the difference between how white students and African American students are treated at a large university that proudly declares itself to be inclusive. In her Facebook post she writes about us, her family. Her friend, whose family also adopted a girl from India, was reflecting on what he learned in his transracial family. Let me emphasize that I’m sharing this with you not because my wife and I are somehow remarkable, but because the message our daughter took to heart while growing up is one many of us are attempting to pass on to our children.
Katherine writes:
I am thankful that parents like yours and mine raised us in such a way that different skin colors were seen as nothing but beautiful. The way our families instilled in us the love of God and taught us how to share that love with others was one of the many gifts we were given. It amazes me [notice her word choice: amazes] that some people are threatened by those who look different from them, and yet people like us so naturally embrace others who appear to be different. In our world, families do not have to look like one another in order to love each other. I have seen how people like you and my brothers willingly loved little brown girls and were proud to declare these little girls your sisters. I guess we have our parents to thank for that. We can thank our parents for being good people: honorable and tender role models of equality and love. Your family is beautiful, and mine is, too.
I am so proud of Katherine. I am so proud of the woman she’s become. I want to emphasize it was not just our family who taught her to value and love others. You were a part of it, too. She learned these lessons right here in Bloomington. She grew up here and went to Bloomington schools: Sheridan Elementary, Bloomington Junior High, and Bloomington High School. You made a difference in her life.
When you and I come to treat our children, all children, our neighbors next door, our neighbors across town, and our neighbors on the other side of the world, with the love Katherine experienced in her family and community, we will come closer to the unity you and I long for.
Our job, first and foremost, is to love others, regardless of who that other person may be. Jesus’ teaching, which I’m sure is very similar to teachings in all of the religious traditions represented here tonight, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” should guide us in all of our relationships.
My eighteen-year-old son has a tattoo that says, quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” May we be the light and love our world needs.
Of course, none of this will be easy. The roots of our country’s racism go back centuries to the arrival of the first European colonists, their disregard for the indigenous peoples, and their enslavement of Africans in pursuit of wealth. We aren’t going to remedy racism and find a new way to be in a month or a year, nor maybe even in our lifetime. It’s taken us centuries to get here; it will take a very long time to get from here to where we need to be
And we’re tired, tired of struggling for peace and justice while more and more good people are killed. Every time we’ve come together after another tragedy, we’ve done so with great resolve and the best of intentions. “We’ll do something about racism this time,” we tell ourselves. We leave these gatherings determined to make our society different. But what happens? We get busy. We have jobs and families. We go to school and volunteer to help others. We struggle with the everyday tasks of living. Before we know it, we’ve lost our passion and put our resolve on hold. “We’ll get to it tomorrow.” And nothing happens: the promised tomorrow never comes. Everything goes on just the way it always has.
We have to awaken from our lethargy and do something sooner rather than later. We have to do something now. If we don’t, more young black men will die senselessly. More courageous police officers will be shot down mercilessly. We can’t, we just can’t, let this continue. Let’s make a difference. Let’s make a difference now!
One observer of the racial tensions that exist in our country likens our contemporary situation to a broken mirror. The mirror has been broken and has shattered into a thousand different pieces that now litter our nation. Those pieces continue to reflect an image, but it’s a partial and fractured image. It’s impossible to see what the image may be. To heal the brokenness of race that lies in these splintered pieces, we have to pick up all of those pieces, one piece at a time, and reassemble our mirror, so that it may reflect an image of wholeness and healing.
Pick up the fragments of peace and justice that lie at your feet. Love those closest to you, and love them into loving others. Love those who are different from you, perhaps even your enemies, and love them into the unity that is ours as sisters and brothers. Amen