Lent 2021: A Time to Reflect Together on Race and Reconciliation
You may have noticed that our Sunday Morning Forums during the Season of Lent are all focused on different topics related to racial reconciliation. You may also have noticed how both John’s Tuesday midday book group and my Wednesday evening book group are reading the same book during Lent, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s recently released memoir, Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubled Times. And maybe you are wondering: Why?
In light of the dramatic events in 2020 related to race—which themselves are the culmination of centuries of racial injustices, inequities, and tensions in our nation’s history—we find ourselves at a moment when, as followers of Christ and people of conscience, we need to pause and reflect.
Living here in Birmingham, we are well acquainted with many painful memories of the massive resistance to racial integration. The bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and with it the deaths of four innocent schoolgirls, as well as the water hoses and police dogs unleashed on civil rights protestors at Kelly Ingram Park, are but two well-known examples among many, many others of the legacy of racism we carry with us in the South and throughout the United States.
However, we also see signs of hope here at Saint Stephen’s and in Birmingham. Our vestry convened an anti-racism task force in 2020 to begin this process of reflection, repentance, and reconciliation. We are committed to getting to know our neighbors in Avondale and Woodlawn. We are exploring a new partnership with an Episcopal school in Haiti.
As the Apostle Paul himself reflected in his second letter to the Corinthians:
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. —2 Corinthians 5:16-20
And now we have an opportunity to learn together, reflect on who we are and what we believe, and having done this we’ll be in a better position to move forward—together as the people of Saint Stephen’s—as ministers of reconciliation in our community.
Please consider reading Bishop Curry’s life story this Lent, whether as part of John’s book group, my book group, on your own, or with friends. His story of growing up as an African American in a segregated time and then as a black priest and bishop in the largely white Episcopal church is an inspiring story of hope and love.
And consider, too, joining with us on Sundays for our Lenten Series on Race, Religion, and Reconciliation. You can join us via Zoom Webinar or YouTube live on Sunday mornings, or you can find the recorded sessions in our Christian Formation playlist on YouTube. You can find all the information you need to connect in each week’s e-newsletter or on our Sunday Forum page.
I pray that the stories we hear and the stories we share this Lent will move us all toward loving all our fellow human beings from God’s point of view.
—Becky+