Orinda Community Church
Sermon for Sunday, April 13, 2008
Minitster-in-Training Sonja Ingebritsen
God’s Gonna Trouble the Water
Cue Recorded Music: “Wade in the Water” by Carole Alston
Fade out after first refrain (approx 40 sec).
Africans were taken from their homeland, separated from tribe and family, loaded onto cargo ships and shackled together on bunks so tightly that they could not even turn around. Many did not survive the journey to America. Those who did were put on auction blocks, examined like horses, and sold to the highest bidder. They were punished for speaking their own languages and forced to answer to new names. Denial of their humanity was an everyday reality. Violence against their bodies, their families, and their culture was a fact of life.
Christianity was introduced to slave populations in order to make them more docile and obedient. Bible passages, like the one we heard today, were used to convince slaves not to challenge the established social order.
But slaves heard other messages in the Judeo-Christian story. In the story of the Exodus, they heard their own longing for freedom and the passionate belief that God would one day carry them out of bondage. In the story of Jesus, they found a God who sided with those who were marginalized and oppressed, and who knew their suffering. They found a God who was willing to suffer with and die for them.
But slaves couldn’t talk openly about their God of liberation, so they coded the message in song. Biblical references communicated what was too dangerous to say. “Wade in the Water” is such a song that came out of the slave experience. The biblical references in this case are to the Exodus.
But there’s something more at work in this spiritual. Tradition has it that this song was used by the Underground Railway, maybe even by Harriet Tubman herself. When the Railway “conductor” sang this song, it was a warning to the runaway slaves to get off the path and move into the water to throw off the scent of the dogs used by trackers. Wading in the water meant the difference between making it to freedom and being recaptured, between escaping with one’s life and being killed.
Please pray with me: May the words spoken, the words sung, and the words received be in your service, great God of Love.
Cue Recorded Music: “Wade in the Water” by Carole Alston.
Play remaining song (approx 2:40).
All told, the history of slavery followed by years of legally enforced segregation in this country spans more than 300 years. How has generation-upon-generation
of this kind of degradation affected Americans of African descent? How has generation-upon-generation of presumed cultural superiority affected those of us who
are identified as white?
Segregation was declared unconstitutional with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but unearned benefits afforded to white-identified persons and withheld from people of color did not end. One of the terms for this phenomenon is “white privilege.” It is still powerfully at play today.
For those of us who are white, our privilege can be difficult to see because it is woven into the very fabric of American society. I can go into almost any store and find that the overwhelming majority of magazines have pictures on the cover of people whose skin color is like mine. I can easily find greeting cards with photos or drawings of people whose skin color is like mine. And when I buy so-called “flesh-colored” products, they will match—more or less—the color of my skin. Americans whose skin color is black or brown do not have these privileges. If you think this is not significant, consider the message being sent about who counts and whose personhood is not or need not be acknowledged.
I can to walk into a store and not be presumed a shoplifter unless my behavior is suspect. Americans whose skin color is black or brown do not have this privilege.
I can drive my car and be fairly sure I will not be stopped by the police without cause. Americans whose skin color is black or brown do not have this privilege.
If I am stopped by the police, I can be fairly sure that I will not be a victim of police harassment or brutality. Americans whose skin color is black or brown do not have this privilege.
The list goes on. There are deep racial disparities in our judicial system; educational resources available in communities of color tend to be significantly less than educational resources available in white communities; poverty rates for African Americans and Hispanics are three to four times the rate for whites; and toxic waste dumps are disproportionately located in communities of color.
Is this to say nothing has changed around race in America? Absolutely not. It is monumental that an African American is a viable competitor in the race for the presidency, regardless of the outcome. And we can point to other signs of progress. But at the same time, we must not fail to notice that the majority of political, economic, and social power in this country is still dominated by whites. Barack Obama, for example, is the only African American currently serving in the Senate,
and 95% of all senators are white.
Cue Recorded Music: “Wade in the Water” by Fannie Lou Hamer.
Play in entirety (2:33).
This spiritual recalls the story of the Exodus. To the Israelites, being asked to step into the Red Sea must have seemed not only dangerous, but absurd. Yet, the community would have been in more danger had they insisted on staying where they were.
When they waded into the water, God “troubled it” and a way opened. The troubled water was God-in-action on behalf of God’s people. The Israelites, for their part, needed to step out in faith and in hope.
Slaves and ex-slaves in the struggle for freedom and their white abolitionist partners, some of whom come from our own faith tradition waded into the water in faith and hope. And God troubled the water and made a way out of slavery. Civil rights activists waded into the water in faith and hope. And God troubled the water and made a way out of Jim Crow.
We, today—all of us together—white, black, and brown—must wade into the water in faith and hope, daring to believe that God will trouble the water and open a way, as God always has done. God will open a way for us to be in meaningful and respectful conversation with one another about race and privilege in this country. God will open a way to move beyond racism and the inequities of white privilege. God will open a way to the promise of just systems, just institutions, and a just society.
There isn’t anything easy about wading in the water, and wading in the water can be frightening, but there is greater danger in staying where we are whenever “where we are” does not mirror the expansive and justice-making love of God.
We can wade in the water in faith and hope. We can wade in the water with confidence. We can wade in the water because we are blessed with the amazing grace
of a “troubling” God. Amen.