Day 3- Transitional housing and diversity in the church
Our day started by passing the World's Largest Fire Hydrant on the way to the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. Pastor Salley shared part of the story of the Methodist Church. John Wesley intended for the church to be a racially mixed body, but this was not allowed to happen in the South. Racial tensions divided white and African American churches early in the 1800s and kept them separate until they intentionally combined as a conference in 1972. We went to learn about how this new conference lived together intentionally in the years following. Pastor Salley talked about intentional cross-racial appointments by the bishop- where a white pastor is placed in a primarily African-American church or vice versa- as a way the bishops have sought to encourage racial diversity in congregations. But when we asked if this had helped increase the diversity of individual congregations, Pastor Salley couldn't say that it had much. And these cross-racial appointments are fewer these days, he said, except when a church requests it. And he said that most congregations remain racially homogeneous. And that it's still work to make sure committees are fully representative of the racial and gender diversity of their churches. Pastor Salley spoke the truth about this work of encouraging racial diversity- it's hard work. And our traditions often hold us back. And just because we say we want to be a diverse church doesn't mean we are willing to step into all that means. As a pastor in the ELCA, a denomination who is still many, many years behind where the UMC is in racial diversity, I hoped that we would hear that it was easier. And that the unique ability of Methodist bishops to send pastors to congregations, even ones who may not choose a pastor of a different racial background on their own, was something that would change the reality of the church far more quickly that could happen in the Lutheran tradition. But that's not what has happened. Because there are no easy answers in racial reconciliation. This is always hard work. But necessary work.
And there are no easy answers to the realities of poverty, either. This afternoon, we served with St. Lawrence Place transitional housing, which was born out of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. It houses 30 families for up to 2 years, supporting them as they move toward independence. Some of our students cleaned out a recently vacated apartment to ready it for another family. But this time it was a sad story- a family moved out suddenly and this was not part of the 97% success rate the program has. This family didn't make it into permanent housing. And their time at St. Lawrence Place had to end. Kids' homework was left behind in the haste to leave and it was a reminder that sometimes even wonderful programs cannot make a way for every family. Sometimes challenges are beyond our ability to help. And sometimes we have to choose carefully who to help when our resources for helping are limited. The choices aren't always clear and our students struggled with how to deal with the pain of not being able to change the situation of another and not being able to make positive choices for someone else. This work is hard.
The rest of our students and I were in the storage shed sorting blankets. Lots and lots of blankets. We were making sure all the donations were in good condition and ready to outfit the apartments of new families coming into the program. It was work that program staff doesn't have time to do during regular hours. The amount of things in the shed was overwhelming. All of these things were donated to make sure that families can be welcomed into homes. There is so much to give. So much desire to give. Which is beautiful. And yet, sometimes the work of getting our "too much" into the hands to have too little is still overwhelming.
When we brought some order to the chaos of the blankets (the photo above is the AFTER shot!), we traveled to Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary for a tour and hear about new vibrancy on campus since it became a part of Lenoir-Rhyne College and now houses a graduate school and soon an occupational therapy program. The campus for church folk is now a campus to the larger world and Luther sits in the middle of the campus and plays the lute.
The Rev. Dr. James Thomas of the seminary joined us over pizza and shared stories with us. He grew up as a Baptist in Louisiana at an all-black school and, as an 11th grader, had to write a paper on the Protestant Reformation. When he was told that his paper was wrong (Martin Luther wanted to get married and that's why the Reformation happened, his teacher told him), he brought his paper to the all-white Lutheran church he passed on his way home from school and asked the pastor to look over his paper. Two days later, he was called into the principal's office and that pastor was there telling the principal that Dr. Thomas' paper was completely right and he would go to the superintendent if this teacher didn't correct the grade. Later, Dr. Thomas began going to this congregation, which was a bit scandalous in the time he grew up in rural Louisiana, and the 28-member congregation had to vote to allow Dr. Thomas to become a member, since he was an African American. This was his welcome into the Lutheran church. A vote. Not on his faith, but on whether a 17-year old young man whose skin was dark, was welcome to be a part of the body of Christ in this place. We're past those days, but I wonder if some of our predominately white congregations feel any more welcoming. Does it ever feel like the congregation is giving those who visit our churches a "vote" as to whether they belong?
And I was struck by how grateful I am to persons both willing to stand up for us and fight for us, like this white pastor, and even more so for the courage of people like Dr. Thomas who stayed in a congregation that was not ready to greet him with open arms. Who looked past the way the society said things should be and risked going where God had called him. Dr. Thomas kept following where God called him- to serve as a principal, work with special education students while also pastoring a church, to earn degree upon degree (five I think, but maybe it was 6) and eventually end up teaching in the seminary. And he talked about how he often challenges his students and calls them to look behind what they think they know about the world, challenges them to change and calls them out to be what he knows they can be. And it made me wonder how many times in the Church we choose to be nice rather than calling people to what God really wants of them. And I realize how it never serves anyone but ourselves and our own comfort. It doesn't help bring the transformation of people or of society that Jesus promises is possible (not comfortable, but possible and certain). And maybe that is the theme that ties our day together- the work of creating a world that looks more like Jesus promises is not easy. It means calling people to something greater. Something that feels hard. Something that calls us to be uncomfortable for the sake of a more beautiful future that we can't even see. It's hard to go there. We will make mistakes. We will feel awkward. We will fail and will not be able to make everything better for everyone. But we follow a road that Jesus did. And we still walk it with him. And there is no failure that Jesus can't bring good out of. So, what in the heck are we so afraid of? It's not easy, but it's worth it.