As we embrace the journey of dismantling racism within the Methodist Federation for Social Action, it is clear that we have a monumental task ahead—not just in our conversations as the Racial Audit Implementation Team, but in confronting the ways our institutions, even with good intentions, have upheld the practices of the majority culture.

For too long, the church has been silent and complicit in both subtle and overt forms of racism. People have left the church because it has boldly professed that all are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), yet remained silent in the face of injustice. We proclaim that there is no longer slave nor free (Galatians 3:28), yet we have been complacent in systems of oppression.

Every so often, I get the chance to drive to the beach, and to get to the beach from where I live in Atlanta, you go down the interstate and at some point you sort of take a left and drive through the countryside to get to the beach, and that part of the country is called the coastal plain, and it is very very flat. If there are no trees, you can see just about all the way to the horizon, and there are fields of things growing in the sandy soil, fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. I'm from a hilly place, from the Piedmont region of Georgia - so I get a strange little thrill being in different kinds of environments. A long stretch of flat terrain might seem boring - it might be, well, plain, but it just seems like something different might be possible there. I like the idea of a place where everything is just out in the open, in full view, plain for all to see.

Hope in the midst of bleak reality - these are the words of Palestinian Christian theologians, written 15 years ago, which I read for the first time this past devastating year. Perhaps these words speak to you this Lent, as you walk your personal road to Gethsemane; as our nation hurtles down a highway of cruelty and greed.

I and others in my church have been on our own journey, finding ways to talk together and learn together about the long struggle for Palestinian liberation.  We are an urban church with a commitment to social justice, yet in the fall of 2023, ours was a tentative voice about the genocide unfolding in Gaza, quieted by concerns about being seen to be antisemitic.  Many of us, like many in the USA, were also woefully behind in our education and exposure to the history of Palestine.

I served a church in Washington DC during the time that “Ashes to Go” became a thing. Colleagues would post selfies of themselves at a busy subway station on Ash Wednesday in collar and stole, offering ashes to anyone who would like them. All the cool clergy were jumping on board to participate in their own communities. Me? Well, once again, I was not cool. I was never cool in school and I wasn’t joining the cool clergy taking to the streets to offer ashes and an invitation to come to church for Lent.

The woman of Samaria witnesses to us that we belong precisely because we are wonderfully different and that God in Christ, our Wonderfully Different invites us to become agents of change for the wholeness of our cosmos.

Take heart, family. Take courage. Prepare for joy. Because God is doing great things in us, through us, and even when we are lost in the wilderness.

Humbleness is a characteristic that has supported the existence of Indigenous communities for thousands of years. In all simplicity, all because it limits the violence of hubris and exploitation.

Jesus acknowledged and affirmed them as his most faithful followers during his journey to the crucifixion.

What if we enter our season with a desire to build a beloved community where our actions are leading to tear down walls that are keeping us divided?

I pray that this season of disease and dis-ease will bring us, people of faith and those on the faith journey, to new places of purpose, understanding, and allowances. That we be stretched to work for your Kin-dom like never before and may we find space at the table for all of your beloved.

As I come out of winter into Lent, I look forward to spring and the Resurrection - of being edged out of the cold doldrums of stillness into the vibrant, moving warmth of life’s new expressions and colors.