Speaking the Truth About Painful Matters is Not Always Easy
Jun 15, 2024
By The Rev. Marianne Tomecek
God always equips us with the Spirit’s words for our lips and strengthens and sustains us for the challenge of living new and redeemed lives once we have come to grips with truth-telling.
Specifically, on this eve of Juneteenth 2024, are you uncomfortable talking about racism? I often am, too. It’s not easy to come to terms with and address harmful, discriminatory, and racist assumptions we have made about people because of their skin color. But we know that we have been caught in patterns of doing just that, which developed centuries ago for many reasons. We know these patterns deprive others of personal dignity, opportunity, a sense of full personhood, and enjoyment of the abundance God has granted us all in life. But we learned those patterns early on, and it’s a continuing struggle to pull ourselves out of them.
It’s shame-inducing to realize that we live in a society—and a world—in which practices have been created (both knowingly and unintentionally) that harm, diminish, or prevent some people from becoming their full selves simply because of their physical characteristics or where their ancestors are from. And, what’s worse, we’ve continued to live encumbered by the inequity that results from those practices and structures.
We know we’ve been trapped in this behavior, usually without recognizing it at first. Our Synod and the ELCA Churchwide are committed to education, training, and establishing antiracist practices designed to live with the value of equity, rather than apparent equality, that hamper some of us from being the full beloved of God they were created to be. We know that there are practical, achievable ways that we can look at our lives and the oppressive structures in our culture to work in love and with God’s grace toward changing both ourselves and our institutions so that they develop as antiracist rather than racist.
Before returning to my childhood home in New York to serve as a pastor, I lived in Houston, Texas, for thirty years. During that time, I learned about Juneteenth – and the history of the years-long delay in announcing the emancipation of enslaved people in this country that it marks. I also shared in the annual celebrations of the relief and release to live free lives that the Juneteenth announcement brought to formerly enslaved people who lived in Texas. Those celebrations, in addition to being times of feasting, singing, dancing, and fellowship, also carried the knowledge that the announcement of freedom was not fully effective. Jim Crow practices, the aborted attempt at Reconstruction, and the creation of legal impediments to a free society for all, as well as personal discrimination, took back the promise of Juneteenth. But, believing in the promise of repentance, forgiveness, and living the redeemed life, Juneteenth reminds us that we have the opportunity to alter the course of history in this country and the world by committing ourselves to living new lives that open the future for everyone.
Our Synod’s Antiracism Committee has been working for years to bring us new ways of addressing the particular sin of racism. We’ve presented various trainings and workshops to sensitize us to the practices that undermine the integrity of some of God’s beloved people because others of us behave in racist ways. These efforts have had some impact; none has eliminated our society's inequity. But we are committed to continuing to take the necessary steps to be educated and trained to live in love to open our hearts while our increasingly antiracist conduct opens opportunities to others.
So, we who are serving on the Committee have a new resource to offer to up to twenty people who are willing to be trained as trainers for other groups in our Synod. These are groups like call committees, congregation councils, and entire congregations, to name just a few, to focus our interactions with others as increasingly antiracist. If you are interested in committing yourself to participate in learning new ways to live in love – and maybe ultimately, to be able to serve as a facilitator for others to learn new truths about themselves and new ways of living with all siblings under God, please join us. If you’re interested, contact Pastor Marianne Tomecek at
[email protected].