Third Sunday of Lent
For Lent 2021, members of CTA’s Anti-Racism Team are sharing weekly reflections. As they are published, their pieces will be posted here. This piece was co-authored by Debra Nell Brittenum and Dale Avers.
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19:8-11
1 Corinthians 1:22-25
John 2:13-25
Lent is confessional time. If borne of Lent, confession has the promise to bring zeal for building the body of Christ right where we stand in an alien, ill-fitting temple that, like concrete, has no resonance. Like Jesus, we need only to upend what conforms to our known context and experience.
Such as…
This I remember clearly: in our third grade classroom, Sister wrote those exhortations from Exodus on the blackboard.
I confess: I loved me some blackboard! Loved erasing them, cleaning them, writing and working math problems on them. What was there was not permanent—quickly dispersed to the unknown. I even gave them as gifts to children with different-colored, earth-produced chalk. They loved them! Loved rightness and wrongness consigned to the junk heap, just like that! A clean slate awaiting some new something. Then, blackboards became whiteboards, requiring things for writing that give off noxious chemical fumes. Something really good, nourishing, and fun must become white. Confession: I thought, colonization stops at nothing and is toxic.
And this…
Those exhortations from Exodus, the Decalogue: we were to memorize all by the next day. That seemed like a lot of work. Let me make quicker work of this, I thought. Raised my hand and said, "'Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.’ May I skip that one? Because I’m a girl, I’ll never have a wife." Sister gave me an inclusive language answer that made absolutely no sense to me: "When you see language that says 'men,' in your mind, flip it to 'women.'” My next thought: "She just wants to get her way and make me learn all ten!" Moreover, no "mind flip" could work justice on the white, gender-conforming, male doctrine she’d taught last week, like who gets what sacraments. Not a reasonable, evolved flip through millennia will change that rule more immutable than the Ten Commandments. Only G-d knows what we will come to learn, experience, and know. Now, women have wives, and we understand the non-binary nature of beings. All is concrete only in our tiny minds. "In reality, the ‘foolishness’ of God is wiser than humans, and the ‘weakness’ of God is stronger than humans."
Like this…
Jesus in the temple: that sounds holy, and it was! The scene was familiar—much like how it had looked during his first visit to the temple. In that first visit, Mary and Joseph offered the option of the poor, two turtle doves for what was holy, perhaps bought right there in an unholy marketplace. As a grown man, on this visit to the temple, it all hit him just right. Practices and traditions that were immutable over time had no resonance. He experienced dissonance in the selling of animals. Dissonance in the necessity of money for a holy purpose. Dissonance in the presence of merchants to put the holy in motion. Conformity unmediated is dissonance. It was all detritus in his "mind flip" that day. Right then and there, Jesus made a whip and cleansed the place. Sometimes that’s holy acceptable, holy necessary.
Our parents moved us from Memphis, Tennessee and our all-Black Catholic school (the nuns and priests were white from up North) to Aspen, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains, in 1959. We were the only little Black children in the school, or town, for that matter. There were other Black adults; most worked in service for rich white families. Some families brought “their help” with them. Our father said he did not trust himself to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In the Red Onion Restaurant one Father’s Day, a white male patron ("a Texan") a table away loudly asked from conformity, "who does he think he is with a white woman and those half-white children?" Our father turned up our table. Dishes, silverware, glasses, water crashed to the floor. Dad said not a word. We knew in that just holy action the truth from within our father’s temple—a Black man! Mom is a Black woman! We children are Black children! Dad marched us out the door home. Alas, too much scripture reading. And the disciples thought it was all about a building. His disciples recalled the words of scripture: zeal for your house devours me like fire (Psalm 69:10).
Now this…
Zeal is not about turning over tables and causing a ruckus. It’s more this: in the heat of zeal there is will, energy, and motivation for all kinds of things. It comes easy. You march, hang a Black Lives Matter banner on the front porch, and buy the latest books on anti-racism. Confession: then you tire quickly, lose interest, and move on to the next new thing. During Lent we take up prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, not by rote or setting them in concrete. Zeal borne of devotion to God is lasting—good concrete. Stay in the scriptures. Pour over social movements, form community with others, and become grounded in Catholic social teachings. Lay your life alongside what is revealed. The concrete will be laid bare. Conformity will ache. When presented with that insight, take action. The zeal you have given over to Lent, community, and study will direct you—even in a flash. Cancel your insurance, give your car away, buy a bicycle, and log on to the public transportation site.
Dream. Big. Radical. Dismantling. Dreams.
Prayer
Good and Gracious God, give me sustained zeal for action. Allow me to be an extension of your hands. Help my willingness to do your work for the long haul. Amen.
Proposed Action
Participate in an anti-racist activity that is sustainable for you:
Join a community group that addresses voter suppression or justice reform.
Develop a relationship with your elected officials to address racist policies of bail, incarceration, policing, and criminal justice reform.
Start a conversation with other individuals in your neighborhood or church community about anti-racist actions Donate to local Black Lives Matter.
Join the CTA Anti-Racism Team.
