Getting our voices heard

 

Romans 8: 22-27
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 19, 2024 – Pentecost Sunday

Photo of a protest sign being held above a crowd of protesters that reads "Fight today for a better tomorrow". 

At the heart of conflict and disagreement is an unresolved power struggle. In the fall of 2015, in the painful wake of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, more than 80 college campuses across the United States erupted in protests against systemic and structural racism in their schools. At the University of Missouri, amidst a climate of overt racial tension, students called for inclusion and respect for marginalized students: Muslim, transgender, and disabled students and people of color. The chancellor of the school issued a statement but did not address specific incidents of harassment, asserting that the university opposed discrimination and intolerance and was working to deal with the concerns shared with them.


Students were not only fed up with the apparent apathy of school leadership but felt unsafe on campus because of it. One graduate student, Jonathan Butler, organized a protest at the homecoming parade by obstructing the car of the university president, Tim Wolfe. Wolfe stayed in the car and refused to speak with the students or even recognize their protest.



It wasn’t until Butler went on a hunger strike that garnered the support of the entire football team that Wolfe resigned as president, as did the chancellor. A few days before he resigned, Wolfe issued a statement in which he regretted his inaction and apologized. He said, “My behavior seemed like I did not care. That was not my intention. …[Had] I gotten out of the car to acknowledge the students and talk with them perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are today.”



Many of those in leadership across college campuses and in state legislatures did not take students’ concerns seriously, accusing them of overreacting and being too sensitive, even disbelieving the veracity of their experiences on and off campus.



Contrast this event with what happened at Amherst College that same fall, a sit-in at the campus library with a diverse crowd of students, faculty, staff and administrators. It was intended to be a show of support for the protests at the University of Missouri and other schools, but when someone acknowledged that what happens at other schools also happens at Amherst, the conversation turned to how people treat each other and what they want for their own school.



A comprehensive list of demands was created to give to Carolyn Martin, the president of the school. Ms. Martin was out of town on school business and was scheduled to leave on an international trip, but when she learned about the student protest, she immediately canceled her plans and met with students that night in the library. She listened to their list of demands, believed them when they shared their pain and exhaustion from prejudice and experiences of racism, and assured them of a prompt response. She promised to form a committee of stakeholders that would examine issues of race and racial injury and make recommendations to her office and the board of trustees. Because she was willing to listen first and believe them, President Martin was also able to use this moment to instruct students about realistic expectations for action and change in an institution. **



At the heart of conflict and disagreement is an unresolved power struggle. Centuries before the Pentecost event in Jerusalem where everyone heard the apostles speaking in the native languages of all those gathered, there was the story of the Tower of Babel in which there was a united human race that spoke one language. But it was a self-serving unity of sameness and safety, one that resisted God’s desire for variety and diversity scattered across a creation unified in covenant with God.



Then the story of the incarnation, in which God divests God’s self of power and becomes human, even going so far as to lay down life for one’s friends. Then raised from the dead to give power to the disciples to proclaim the gospel and to resist the powers of evil.



Not only that but God also gives us the Holy Spirit—the Comforter, the Advocate. Essentially, the one who hears us, believes us, comforts us, and intercedes for us when we don’t have words for what we need.



God seeks to resolve humanity’s power struggle with the divine and with itself by giving power away, by giving us a voice, many and varied voices, and the ability to understand by being understood.



A few years ago, Stephanie Chang who worked with Student Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Delaware shared some important wisdom with me. Affixed to the wall above my desk are two sticky notes with these two questions: How do you know I know who I am? How do I know I can talk to you about who I am?



So then, how do I know you know who you are? How do you know you can talk to me about you are? It all comes down to trust and relationship. And love.



At the heart of conflict and disagreement is an unresolved power struggle. A voice crying out to be heard. Groaning in labor pains for the birth of a new world. Bodies, hearts, and minds placing themselves in the way of injustice. The image of the divine corrupted and obscured by a power imbalance. And it takes not only the willingness of the powerful to listen and to believe but also the boosting of voices that have been marginalized and ignored.



What if the work of the Holy Spirit’s intercession works through us? What if we divested ourselves from some of our power and invested it in students who have been arrested? The website campusbailfunds.com has been set up for 11 college and university encampments as well as for petitions and further actions linked to calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. There is also the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that needs support in its humanitarian efforts. Our Global Ministries partners in Israel and Palestine continue to work as best they can even though many of their facilities have been destroyed.



I believe that most people long for a better world, a changed world, a world made whole and yet we also want to keep what we have. That is a power struggle we all carry within us. We have a voice that needs to be heard, a language of love and justice that needs to be spoken, but there are times when we are hesitant, fearful to use that voice, to align our voice with others.



Somewhere, sometime, someone has spoken on your behalf, invested their power, believed you, acknowledged your pain, and interceded for you with care, with compassion, with generosity, with justice. And it changed your life.



That’s the work of the Holy Spirit, folks. That’s the birth of the Church and community.

Benediction

Spirit is breath
It is peace
It is light
It is fire
It is movement
It is a voice crying out to be heard
It is power to change lives
The Spirit lives in you
And in our life together
Longing to be made known
By the way we live.

Amen.

**The accounts of these student protests came from Why All the Black Kids Are Still Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum, 2017 ed.