How Can Privileged Christians Work Strategically for Equality?

I have the great privilege today an honor of introducing dr. Christina Cleveland Christina Cleveland is a social psychologist public theologian author and professor she is an associate professor of the practice of organizational studies at Duke University's Divinity School and the author of disunity in Christ uncovering the unhidden forces that keep us apart and that book is for sale at the table today as a child growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area Christina was exposed to the richness of cultural difference the kids on her neighborhood block represented 9 different nationalities and she quickly discovered that be there in five minutes means different things depending on who is saying it at the multi-ethnic church that her parents planted she learned that different cultures experienced and perceived God differently and that is a good thing when she wasn't heading off to an Oakland A's game to catch the bash brothers in action she was studying ultimately attending Dartmouth College where she double majored in psychology psychological brain sciences and sociology and UC Santa Barbara where she earned a PhD in social psychology recently named one of five online Shepherd's to follow by Jet magazine christina has devoted much of her vocation to teaching in higher educational institutions as well as serving the church and broader society by regularly writing speaking about compassion as a buffer for racial stress she's also finishing her second book hooray for us which examines inequality and offers a practical theology of privilege a recent transplant to the south christina has fallen in love with the Carolina woods sabers the time she spends on her farm and with friends and is thinking about becoming a Durham Bulls fan and now I turn over the podium to dr. Christina Cleveland [Applause] thank you good morning everyone and I'm going to start by just allowing us take a deep breath try take a deep breath but come all the way from your feet on the ground all the way up to the top of your head and back down four counts and four counts out if it's easier for you to count and I'm going to read a passage from Philippians for you and as my friend who is Episcopal Buddhist says just let the liturgy wash over you if you find any comfort from being in the anointed as creator God's love brings you some encouragement if you experience true companionship with the spirit if God's tenderness and mercy fill your heart than everyone here is one thing that would complete my joy come together as one in mind and spirit and purpose sharing and the same love don't let selfishness and prideful agendas take over embrace true humility and lift your heads to extend love love to others get beyond yourselves and protecting your own interests be sincere and secure your own your neighbors interest first in other words adopt the mindset of Jesus be anointed live with Jesus's attitude in your hearts remember though he was in the form of God he chose not to cling to equality with God but he bored himself out to fill a breast of vessel brand-new a servant in form and a man indeed the very likeness of humanity he humbled himself obedient to death a merciless death on the cross so God raised him up to the highest place and gave Jesus the name above all so when Jesus's name is called every knee will bow in heaven on earth and below and every tongue will confess Jesus The Anointed One is God to the glory of God amen this passage is so rich it's from Philippians 2 it's one that's commonly read particularly the poem and the second half where Paul presumably is telling us about this this journey that Jesus went on this this way in which Jesus demonstrated his humble and sacrificial love for us and the reason why I want to start with that here is because I often talk with privileged people and I'm writing a book on privilege and I'm going to share a little bit from that book today when I also got the privileged people and by privileged people I mean you all and they love this message they often say to me I want to be humble like that I want to this dispatches inspires me I want to have unity the unity that Paul's talking about I want to be sincere in my love for other people I want to be of one mind I don't like it that there are people who are hungry and there are people who are victims of racism and there are people who are refugees and there are people who are negatively affected by our government are incarcerated and they say help I want to do well and so I say well what's your plan and they say oh you know I just want to be humble like Jesus and I'm like that sounds kind of vague what do you mean by that you know just humble like Jesus and oftentimes they'll put they'll like kind of point to this passage and if there's one thing I've learned in my research and in my life as someone who identifies with both privileged and oppressed groups is that whenever privileged people try to do something with humility oppressed people usually get hurt because what makes sense to privileged people often does not make sense to people who don't have that same standing and it's often actually alienating silencing and oppressive and so I thought you know I do like this passage I'm like anyone else who's you know inspired by this passage and I think it's beautiful Jesus did not clean to his equality with God but he came down to earth and I said okay is it possible for us to create a model of humility across power lines in the way that Jesus sort of crosses power lines in this passage and this message is really oftentimes we associate it with the in part with the Incarnation right Jesus kind of crossing these metaphysical Plains in order to come be with us and as much as I'm inspired by that and intrigued by that my human mind doesn't quite comprehend that and I certainly am NOT personally capable of crossing metaphysical Plains like Jesus did and so it's hard to build a model off of that but one thing that I've noticed in my scholarship is that you know the Incarnation even though we we focus that idea on Jesus coming down to earth however it went down picking on flesh Jesus was actually incarnation 'el in the way that Paul's talking about after he already got to earth Paul is using poet in this passage where Paul's talking about how Jesus emptied himself he's using this Greek word canosa's which means emptying or letting go and so he's saying you know Jesus is emptying himself as his power his privilege not clinging to his equality with God and Jesus keeps emptying himself and emptying himself and emptying himself until he's on the cross until there's no more to give and so I thought you know if the Incarnation as we understand it where Jesus came to earth is just the beginning then how does Jesus continue to empty himself how does she this continue to incarnate how does shoes continue to not cling to his power and privilege in equality with God as he's interacting with human beings as a human being because that's actually a model that I can sort of follow that's oh that's except the human being doing things on earth let's let's look at that so I created my own biblical hermeneutic which you know I'm at a Divinity School now so it's okay don't worry and what I decided to do is go through the entire Gospels looking to see how is Jesus understanding his social situation how does Jesus have a sociological imagination how does Jesus locate himself relative to other people in his world and how does he empty himself of his power and privilege in that specific situation because we often think about Jesus as being oppressed and in a lot of ways he was let's face it his parents had to sacrifice to Debs when he got circumcised and that's like the poor man's sacrifice actually you're supposed to sacrifice to sheep so that's some evidence that Jesus you know was came from a lower a lower income family Jesus was also Jewish under octopanda Roman occupation so he certainly identified with an oppressed group but on the flip side Jesus was not Samaritan so he had some power and privilege and society relative to Samaritans Jesus was male and not female we had some standing over women Jesus was free in a slave Society Jesus's family was important enough to be counted in the census which meant that they were seen as actual human beings not everyone was counted in a census and so in some ways Jesus had privilege and power and voice and platform and certainly in his ministry as a leader and as a rabbi teacher he had voice and so I'm thinking you know when we look at Jesus in different scenarios throughout the scripture how can we see how Jesus is emptying himself in order to make face for other people in order to advance the causes and the voices of people who have been marginalized exactly how does Jesus do what Paul's inviting us to do coming together as one in mind and spirit and purpose sharing in the same love that the Trinity shares and so I'll give you an example of one passage but one of my one of my favorites is the the story of gyrus and the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and it shows up in all three of the synoptic Gospels and it's a fascinating story from a social perspective because here we have Jesus who is very early in his ministry career he's sort of disliked up-and-coming leader up-and-coming rabbi and he's come from the margins Nazareth where nothing nothing ever nothing good could ever come from Nazareth and up into this point he's really only been healing and working and teaching the marginalized he's you know he's healed a couple lepers he's you know healed some blind people he's been nice to some women you know but for the most part the important people in society has not participated in Jesus's ministry and then comes gyrus who's a rabbi a leader in the synagogue a very important person this is like the white guy right this is like the middle-class heterosexual upwardly mobile white guy right he's got all the privilege in society and he says my daughter is sick please come heal my daughter and so jesus loves white guys too and says yes I will come heal your daughter absolutely and he starts walking with gyruss meanwhile there are thousands of people clamoring to talk to Jesus to touch Jesus and this woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years touches Jesus this is him just his clothes and all three of the synoptic Gospels say it exactly as they say and Jesus felt the power go out of hand and she was healed it was done she was healed and then Jesus asks a question Jesus says who touched me after she had already been healed and he knew it and gyruss is waiting this important person is waiting and so it's a social psychologist and as someone who is looking at Jesus at the Gospels through this hermeneutic I'm thinking why would Jesus ask that question up into this point all eyes are on Jesus who has power and privilege in this space and on gyruss who has power and privilege in this space and in society and by simply asking that one question who touched me which everyone thought was ridiculous even the disciples they're like that's the dumbest question ever everyone's touching you right by asking the question Jesus shifts all the focus in that entire community from him and gyruss to this woman and she gets to tell her story and I love the way mark tells it he says and she told her whole truth this woman who probably smelled horribly at this point this woman who was most likely homeless because in the theology of that day if you were sick that meant you were spiritually sick you were sinful and so families could kick you to the curb and no one would think any less of them for it she had been marginalized she probably had no money she probably looked very sick she was the kind of person that what no one in that whole culture would possibly think this woman is the center of what God is doing right now and she gets to tell her whole truth and I was feeling twelve years of being sick in that society I'm guessing her whole truth was not short she's talking and she's sharing and she's sharing and her story is coming out and jesus is listening and listening and meanwhile gyrus is standing there waiting and waiting and waiting and listening to this woman tell her whole truth and at any moment gyrus could have easily said alright Jesus let's wrap this up I'm glad you you know good for her however I have means right in a real need my daughter is about just my daughter's dying let's go Jesus and I don't think anybody would have questioned that because in that society he and all the power right it's like he yes gyrus could easily intervene and say yeah yeah ok let's move move along because in their society just like our society the needs and the desires and the perspectives and the ones and the interpretations of privileged people are typically seen as more valid more important more urgent than those of the marginalize yeah yeah her story is good but my story like let's Jesus I want you to be part of my story Cyrus didn't do that so I think it's telling least there's no record of gyrus doing that gyrus waited and he and and he heard her story just like everybody else got to hear her story and that woman for the first time in her life I imagine was the center of what was happening in that community was the center of what God was doing in that community and certainly she was physically healed I cannot imagine that her identity was not healed in that moment as well too and then and this is the part that's so chilling gyruss gets the word your daughter has died don't even bother the teacher anymore she's gone and as someone who's been researching the way privileged people sort of interpret the world what their fears are I'm like this is like every privileged person's greatest fear right while while other people are getting the attention and the Equality that they've always deserved that's going to impact me in a negative way right if if my job makes a point of intentionally hiring women of color well then what's going to happen to me am I going to get promoted wait oh my gosh or if this school Institute's affirmative action to try to write an institutional long well as my son going to be able to get in and if I give sacrificially of my money on my bills going to be paid well I have what I need will I be able to send my kids to college if we just let anybody move into the neighborhood will I feel safe this is like every privileged person's fear if you don't believe me just believe me actually this is what I hear over and over and over again and the reason why I know this to be true is not just for my the research I've done with interviews I've conducted with people but there's a recent sociological finding that comes up it says that when privileged people in this study was particularly done on white men when privileged people are required to participate in a system of equality where everyone actually gets the same resources and they don't get extra or any boost it feels like discrimination to them the psychological experience is comparable to the psychological experience that like say women of color have when they're actually being discriminated against right okay so just just to be clear think reading everyone the same is by definition equality okay so there's not being discriminated again but it feels like it so that kind of helps us understand what gyrus was probably feeling yeah geez I'm glad that you're paying attention to this woman but meanwhile I'm not getting what I need and do I really want to participate in a world where I'm not guaranteed to get what I need even if it means giving someone else what they need when I think about that those fears the fear that I'm not going to get in mine if I really participate in equality and inequity is really a fear that comes out of a theology of scarcity not abundance and when I'm tempted to feel that way myself I have to ask myself do I really believe in the resurrection because if I really believe in the resurrection which we presumably just celebrated not too long ago then I have to believe that there's enough power and enough love and enough resources to go around and I don't have to fear actually I'm invited to participate in the work that God is doing and making things right and that's exactly what Jesus was doing Jesus was saying there's an imbalance in this community and this woman for 12 years has been neglected and nobody's cared about her needs and she's never been the center of anything and so yeah I'm going to put you on hold for a second so she gets to tell her whole truth and sure enough gyrus is people came and they said she's your daughter's dead don't even worry and Jesus says to gyrus half-space just believe just believe just believe that there's abundance just believe that there's enough for you to and what's so interesting to me and I can't prove this but gyrus was able to have that faith and he was still able to go with Jesus to his home and Jesus went to his home and resurrected his daughter which I feel like is like extra miracle you know like she was just going to be healed and then he got to actually witness a resurrection I that's pretty cool but he was able to trust because he could have easily just been like oh yeah Jesus forget it I'm mad I'm mad that you took time to care about this woman and I'm just hurt because it's not about me and it's hard when it's not about me but he still had faith and I can't prove this by but I look at this and I look at the way that I understand the interdependence of humanity the interdependence of God the way that we work were called to be in relationship with each other the way in which one person's liberation is bound up in an essence liberation and I think gyruss got to hear this woman's whole truth and in hearing that whole truth he was able to have the faith that he needed in order to trust when Jesus said there's abundance we like to believe that we have to get what we need and that our story is separate from other people's stories but I can't imagine watching Jesus heal that woman and this and not being affected not being encouraged not being nourished not having greater faith that yeah Jesus can heal Jesus can do anything Jesus can change the whole reality and so when I look at passages like this and I see the way that Jesus is so savvy he had a sociological imagination he understood I'm located here other people are located here and I'm going to empty myself I'm going to turn the spotlight to other people I'm going to use my voice to amplify other people's voices or just get out of the way and make space for them to speak for themselves I'm going to Center the perspectives of the marginalized and invite the entire community to do that as well and we see this in every single every single interaction that Jesus has where he's emptying himself of his power and his privilege and he just keeps emptying himself and emptying himself and empty himself until really there's just nothing left and he's on the cross he was so adamant about disrupting the power structure that people had to kill him it was too offensive to them and so I think okay so this is what being just humble like Jesus looks like alright okay so if I want to empty myself like Jesus did if I want to participate in canosa's then I need to actually take inventory of what exactly it is that I want to empty right this big humility is not really going to get me anywhere and so that's really the first step that I think in terms of actions what do I have to take what do I have to empty myself of what are the ways in which I identify with privileged groups what are that one of the ways in which I actually have power and privilege relative to other I was speaking at a conference a couple years ago with this guy who how do I say this without I wanted I want him to be anonymous he is very very very high up of like probably a fortune 50 company and I'm sure everyone your household is full of things from this company and so he and I were talking and he was just um he was telling me about how he sees his face because he's a person of faith I'm interacting with his work and I said okay so tell me what exactly is it that you know how does your faith impacting me like well I try to be really honest on the job so personal honesty is and he says and I try not to neglect my wife I want to be nice to her and not be too much of a workaholic so that she feels loved and I'm like good I'm not I'm glad you're nice to your wife and that was like the end of it right that was like his and I was like okay I'm glad you're honest I'm glad you're nice to your wife not I'm pro all those things but I was like what is the point of being in this position at this company if you're not asking questions like how come kids in low-income urban schools don't have access to our product how come our entire board is white men how come when we put on these huge conferences the people who are spotlighted the most are white men or white people and so he hadn't taken inventory but he just wanted to be vaguely humble and I was like yeah that's great be honest that's good but he hadn't thought about how exactly do I have influence and what would it look like for me to empty myself of that influence you know and this is something that is very it's simple but costly and I've been amazed at the types of people who are willing to go down this journey and it's not always the people that I think well because the fact of the matter is that this journey took Jesus to the cross because it was so offensive to people and we often think well this journey we can sort of juggle this and everything else that we do right it's some I can just I can still keep my position and also kind of dabble a little bit in just this work and if I just listened to enough podcast about about racism and read enough books and have a couple of conversations that don't really cost me much and then since then all that I'm participating in this but the fact of the matter is we can't get away from this is that this journey took Jesus to the cross and this journey also took him to the resurrection so there's you know a light at the end of the tunnel but I've been amazed that the people who are willing to go on this journey to really take inventory and oftentimes it's people who are I just I just don't suspect it so for example I was contacted by a group of women she was probably four years ago now um who were really interested in they yeah they're a group of stay-at-home moms white upper-middle class and they were in it they were part of a group that gathered moms to pray for the kids at their local school because all their kids went to that school so again one of these like really nice positive groups but what they said to me was were we are we live on one side of town that's a upwardly mobile white bromley white and then we share a high school with the other side of town which is low income predominantly Hispanic and so they said we recognize that this like 50/50 white-hispanic and so there probably are all these latina moms who would want to pray with us but we haven't been able to connect with that group we've been trying to get them to come to our prayer time but they won't come and I will add they were a little whiny about it like nobody will come like they're rejecting us and I'm like okay so what have you tried and they said well we set out we went up blue put up some flyers and some of the spanish-speaking churches and we sent out a few email invitations and I said okay and again like these are just regular people right and so I wasn't expecting much but I thought all right well what is it about your life that makes oh no I asked him yeah I'm getting ahead of myself I asked them wouldn't you group me and they said 11 o'clock on Thursday morning okay okay and so I said well what is it about your life that makes you available at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning and they said their response was well actually we got together with our spouses and we decided you know we really love our kids and we really want to prioritize someone being home with them so we chose to stay home and that's why we're available at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning and I thought and I said to them wow that's the wrong answer and what's amazing and what we talked about yesterday afternoon is the ways in which we want to feel good about our group and so of course their explanation for why they were available at 11 o'clock on a Thursday morning was going to be about how awesome they were and how much they loved their kids right that's normal human like that's that's how we organize our world we want to feel good about our group and so I just said well actually that's not the right answer why do you think you're available at 11 o'clock on a Thursday morning and they said we don't know that's not the answer we don't know and I said that's fair you're being honest that's awesome because I said here's what I want you to do don't call me back for at least three months take your families and I was talking to five women who are the leaders of this group of about 25 women and so I said take your families leave your church your church where everyone's like you and go and participate in an Hispanic Church and get to know people and share life and share brain space and when you figured out what it is about your life that makes you available at eleven o'clock on a Thursday morning call me back and I was trying to get them to take inventory what is it that you have because of your social location that other people don't have because we can't talk about giving anything up if you're not even aware of what it is that you have and I say this kind of stuff to people all the time right I mean I'm always like challenging people to do this and that and usually people are like mm-hmm I understand exactly what you're saying no because the fact of the matter is is we're inspired by this passage but no one actually wants to live it we're too afraid of the whole concept of cross and because of that we actually don't really get to participate in resurrection and we live these very shallow lives my friends who live in Rwanda are like we pray for you we pray for you Western Christians because you don't even know what hope is you don't even know what resurrection is and so usually people just say no like I hear your challenge and no I'm too comfortable with these women surprise me they were amazing they were like all right we'll do it I was like okay and they actually didn't coming back for about six months and they called me back and the first thing one of the women said they're like oh my gosh we have so much talk to you about and I said okay and she she the leader said but the first thing I want to say is for the first time in my life I have flesh on my bone and she said how could I ever go back how could I ever go back and they said but we learned all these things they're like first of all we have all these Latina sisters now and we learned all these things about their lives in our lives and one of them was like hey one of the things we learned is they love their kids as much as we do I was like probably more you know like they were like but they want to pray with us but many are working multiple jobs and many of them have lots of pressures on their lives and many of them do not do not have private transportation and getting around town on the buses is time-consuming and many of them don't always still face in their neighborhood and so waiting for the bus can even be scary so they said so we just went ahead and change because they were supposed to come back and talk to me and then we were supposed to come up with a plan no didn't do that she's great they were like we just went ahead and change the time of our prayer group we made at 11 p.m. on a Thursday night in the home of one of the moms latina moms because they said we realized we have private transportation we have access to childcare all of us are stay-at-home moms so if we need to rearrange our schedule on Friday morning to compensate for the fact that we're out really late we can do that they were like we realize there is this barrier we wanted unity but we wanted it on our terms we didn't want have to give up anything we didn't want have to make a sacrifice and they're like we realized it wasn't going to work that way so they were like we've been meeting now at 11:00 p.m. on Thursday night and they're like now we have about 25 white moms coming we have about 20 Latino mom's coming we're packing out this apartment that we're in and then like three months later they call me back and they were like some of the Latina mom said that way more moms would come except for they don't they all speak English and so one of the white moms was like alright cool I'll pay for a translator not a big deal and so we got a translator and then they said do we realize we white women realized that we needed to learn Spanish so about 12 of them signed up for classes and started learning Spanish because they said you know why should they have to learn English again they're taking inventory right these are sociology majors right these are not people who could give you a lecture on power and privilege but every single time they were invited to empty themselves like Jesus they emptied themselves and they said all right so we're going to start learning and so a bunch of them started learning Spanish and then about six months later they called me back and they were like our group yeah we definitely still pray for sure but now we mostly just do immigration reform work because how can you not write how can you not how can it not lead to actually putting your own values and resources and time on the line in cross-cultural advocacy in the same way that Jesus came to earth and took on a whole set of human problems and issues and fears and concerns that were nothing like his own what he experienced in the Trinity and so they said you know we had no idea that our sisters live in fear all the time that phone and their family is going to get deported we had no idea that our county has chosen to define residency in a way that excludes people who are not citizens and so therefore people who might want to have access to public hospitals or public education and some of the things that the county should provide and I hope they've gotten involved with that in one of the things net like I said this this group is surprising because this isn't the group that you would assume these aren't the people who talk the talk right these aren't the people who listen to all the podcasts and read all the books actually I'm a little wary of those people these are people who knew nothing and every step of the way when they were when they had an opportunity to empty themselves they simply said yes we'll ask questions later but yes I think that's the challenge for those of us like I think it's so easy particularly those of us who identify as progressive Christians which I do as well to think that we're doing enough just by having the conversation but at the same time we are holding on to all the power our lives haven't changed in terms of our social interactions in terms of where we spend our time who we spend it with how we actually spend our money how we're intervening and advocating at our jobs in ways that actually might hurt us where maybe it's not the popular thing to kind of come off as the progressive one maybe it's not the popular thing to say actually I'm going to insist on this next higher being someone who comes from a marginalized community and taking the hits but one thing I've noticed and one thing that I love about this passage too and that we know from jesus's life is that this is the pathway to salvation this is the pathway is by salvation I mean wholeness by salvation I mean equity between people in our world this is the pathway and this is what we get to benefit from when we go down this path which yes does lead to death it leads to crosses but we can't truly experience resurrection without that and one of the things that I've learned so much in my work around a theology of rezar of reconciliation is that reconciliation really has one foot and the cross and one foot in the resurrection it's both the way it's often been talked about particularly in white communities is it's just wreck it's just resurrection like yay kumbaya let's come together but no one wants to pay the price for it and so this is our invitation this is our opportunity and like the woman who said I feel like for the first time in my life I have flesh on my bones I have never found anyone who's gone truly gone down this path who's ever wanted to go back so I'll leave you with that thank you you

Channel: All Saints Church Pasadena

Views: 6,405

Rating: 4.7209301 out of 5

Keywords: Progressive Christianity, Peace and justice, community, spirituality, peacemaking, sacred resistance, racism, equality

Id: tJlt1zwGZqM

Length: 42min 4sec (2524 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2017