is it a sin to be white?

Homily

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time AII

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

7 June 2020

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +JMJ +m

Is it a sin to be white?

No.  But it is a sin to stay white.

As a white American male I enjoy more power, privilege and protection (the three P's) than 99.999% of all persons in history.  It's a fact that is not hard to know, see and feel.  I remember how scared I was in 2010 in South Africa when I ventured into neighborhoods where white priests had been robbed and shot, places where I didn't have the three P's.  I know I'm a coward.  Even today I rarely spend time, money and energy in zip codes where I don't have the three P's.  I don't let myself experience the danger that is normal for most persons.

No, it's not a sin to be white.  But it is a sin to stay white.

Today is not a day for excuses.  Who cares if I've personally worked hard and that I'm not personally racist.  Compared to the white and black soldiers who on D-Day June 6, 1946, threw themselves into the heart of danger to fight the the evil assault on human dignity that was Nazi Germany, I have done nothing.  Nothing.  I want to honor those soldiers of all colors not with excuses, but with action. With my admission that our country needs new heroes, and that America is not great unless she gets a whole helluva lot better.

I'll be honest.  George Floyd is not my chosen rallying point.  I am concerned that the Black Lives Matter movement will be co-opted by politics, ideology, violence and hate and do more harm than good.  And I'm most angry about the violence done to innocent, unborn minority girls who are discarded and dismembered here and around the world because fathers will not fight for their right to breathe.  I would start by saying unless and until unborn lives matter, no lives matter.  But insofar as I am doing nothing either for the unborn or for George Floyd, I am a big part of the problem.

Right now, the Holy Spirit is breathing clarity and conviction into our nation through the image of a white officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on the neck of a black man, George Floyd.  Like it or not, his life is a new starting point.  Until George Floyd's life matters, no lives matter.  Unless black lives matter, no lives matter.  

Black lives matter.  It's not that hard to say.  And yes, I am sorry if as a white pastor or a mostly white Church, I'm afraid to say it, or am the last to say it instead of the first.  I do not care where you get your news.  Saying black lives matter is not political.  It's just not.

It's no more political that saying that one is three and three is one.  That's the mystery and the message of Trinity Sunday.  That the most real and the only lasting unity is born through a full diversity of persons.  One is three and three is one.  That's only true if there is no privilege or segregation or inequality in God. There is instead intimacy, closeness, communion, dignity, equality.  That's what we celebrate - the heart of all reality and any personhood is the Trinity.  Today's mystery is that before sin, violence, rivalry and politics entered the world, there are three persons who matter to each other.  Saying black lives matter is not political. It's written into the very heart of God.  That is why racism, as Archbishop Naumann says, is ultimately an insult to God, who Trinitarian image is written on people of every color.

To ignore today's mystery is to allow God to be perceived wrongly, to be experienced as a rich, privileged white guy who controls his slaves from far away.  Insofar as my Church rests in white privilege, and stays white, and my leadership is perceived in this way, I am not proclaiming the truth about God!

But this not the truth of who God is.  His Trinitarian mystery is revealed in the paschal one whose fullness we just celebrated at Pentecost.  God is a heartbroken Father who through His Spirit sends His Son into the heart of danger to be a victim who saves.  At the heart of God is not the privilege to separate and dominate, but a burning desire to suffer evil and transform it with mercy.

I am not proclaiming the truth about God, and I'm no disciple of Jesus unless I take a knee and give up my breath so that others may breathe.  

The breath of the Holy Spirit is speaking clearly.  Ready or not, there is a new starting point.  I must be able to see God and myself in my black brothers and sisters.  At the heart of reality there are persons who matter to each other.  Unless and until black lives matter, no lives matter.

No, it's not a sin to be white.

But it is a sin to do nothing, and to stay white.