Hello Grace Chapel, my name is Sarah Blumenshine, and I am a long-time member at Grace, where I attend the Wilmington Campus. I also work as the Director of Intercultural Ministries at the Emmanuel Gospel Center in Boston.

Today I want to especially address the folks in our congregation who are feeling uncomfortable that Grace Chapel is taking an anti-racism stance. In order to do that, I need to warn my sisters and brothers of color that what I’m about to say could be triggering. The reality is, Grace Chapel, that we have people in our congregation who have experienced life so differently than one another that we can all be sitting in the same room, or on the same Zoom call, having a completely different reaction to the situation we find ourselves in today.

On the one hand, some of our Grace Chapel brothers and sisters already have the lived experience that tells them that authorities aren’t always on their side. They’ve been followed around a store as if they might steal something. They’ve been asked to empty their purse. They’ve been pulled over several times in a month for no reason. Their young adult children have been treated with unwarranted suspicion. These are true stories and they are important.

I contrast these stories with my own experience. When I was little, my parents told me that if I was ever in trouble, I should look for someone in uniform. Authorities were there to protect me and protect people who had good intentions from the people who were bad. When I got pulled over for speeding when I was 19, I knew if I was polite and respectful that I would be fine. I was only given a warning. In the 25 years since, I have not been pulled over one time, and I’m sorry to say that it isn’t because of my rigid observance of the speed limit.

The crazy thing is, both of these life experiences can be true at the same time. Which begs the question, what do I do with that? Do I rest easy in my own safety, my privilege? Or do I enter into the stories and the pain of my Black brothers and sisters and join them in calling out this injustice?

God has plenty to say about injustice. Reading the words that the Lord God spoke to Amos, from chapter 5 of The Message translation:

“I can’t stand your religious meetings.

    I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.

I want nothing to do with your religion projects,

    your pretentious slogans and goals.

....

Do you know what I want?

    I want justice—oceans of it.

I want fairness—rivers of it.

    That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”

• Amos 5:21-24

  I can see that what my Black sisters and brothers have experienced is profoundly unfair. I can see that this is not about politics - it is absolutely, unequivocally biblical to insist on justice. Our God demands it. If we say we are with Him, then we have to open our ears to hear stories that sound different than our own, and we have to open our hearts to pain that is outside our personal experience. We might not even have a way to understand it yet. Taking that risk means we have to be willing to be wrong, and believe me I have been wrong many times. But we are all on this journey, and we can hold one another up. Join a Be the Bridge discussion group. Read one of the many excellent books already recommended in these devotional threads. Above all, pray with an open heart that the Lord will use these things and speak to you. And remember that wherever you find yourself on the journey, we are in this together.