Race

Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth. - Psalm 54:2

We bring our prayers to Creator God, who both "takes up our pain and bears our suffering" and will "let justice roll down like a river."

Protests Continue in Hong Kong

“Will you give me a drink?” asked Jesus of the Samaritan woman. This story found in John 4:7-26 illustrates Jesus’ deep love for all women even those rejected by mainstream society. In this story, a Samaritan woman is at the well with Jesus, about to draw water for herself. Jesus asks her to get him a drink. Shocked at his request because Samaritans  and Jews didn’t mix, a conversation ensues.

Synod 1968 established Sunday, July 14, as a day of prayer for racial reconciliation. This year, July 14 once again falls on a Sunday.

We call on members of the Christian Reformed Church to dedicate this day of prayer for a renewal of society through racial reconciliation, and to labor unceasingly to cause the light of the gospel of Christ’s love and peace of to shine upon all. (Acts and Agenda of Synod, 1968, page 18)

Prayer

God of every nation, tribe, and tongue,

The divisions in North American politics are sharp and create upheaval over what exactly it means to be Christian.

There is racial unrest so deep, it threatens to undo the ministry of reconciliation to which the church is called.

Reformed theology is used to justify white supremacy and isolationism.

When I started attending a Christian Reformed church in 1973, my only interest in the church was it had a basketball court inside the building. Over time, I found the pastors were gracious and kind. The interracial congregation felt its mission was that all African American lives would flourish on the west side of Chicago.

Lord, in this Holy Week as we walk with your Son to the cross and wait for resurrection, hear our prayers!

There’s one exercise I distinctly remember from a regional gathering of ministry interns and supervisors. We were asked to place ourselves on a line in relation to what power we felt we held in that room.

I placed myself at the lowest end of the line.

I placed myself at the lowest end of the line. I was not yet ordained and hadn’t yet finished my education, was fairly low income, was the one learning in that room and not teaching, and I was one of the youngest women, who also lives with a physical disability (Cerebral Palsy).

On August 16, 1967, Martin Luther King was interested in the soul of America. At the eleventh Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention in Atlanta, he observed the domestic terrorism in the South, northern indifference to structural inequalities, and a stubborn resistance from the evangelical community to realizing its own hypocrisy.