This summer at Woodridge United Methodist Church, our Lead Pastor Rev. Danita Anderson and I are offering a sermon series on racism we call, “Privilege and Promise: This is America.”

We are committed to examining the extant racism around us (and in us!) and moving toward being actively antiracist — both as individuals and as a congregation. 

We recognize that this is heavy, exacting work that is both immediately necessary and requires long-term solutions. In other words, this is not a series — of sermons or of actions — that we can hurry up, get through, in order to get on to other, more comfortable topics. 

So the sermon series will occur on the 3rd and 4th Sundays of June, July, and August. Spreading out the series is intended to give us space and time to really reflect, repent, and reorient ourselves toward the antiracist community God calls us to be…while also adding in time to breathe. We all need to be able to breathe.

As you may remember, I attempted a prologue to the series a couple weeks ago. Pastor Danita spoke part one, “Moving Beyond Fear,” into being last week. Watch that video here. Prefer audio only? Find that here.

For part two I went with “Being Colorblind.” This sermon in general, and most of the statistics in particular, are influenced by and come from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How To Be An Antiracist.

Our goal is to become actively antiracist people, to become an actively antiracist congregation, to become an actively antiracist community, to become an actively antiracist nation, and ultimately an actively antiracist world. But in order to do that we must start seeing color.

Here’s the video. Once again, WordPress and YouTube won’t play nice. So fast forward to the 47:18 mark for the start of the sermon.

Here’s the podcast-style audio-only version:

So let’s remember that there is no golden age to get back to. There is only a more merciful, more equitable, more just future to bring into being.

Let me know what you think. Including — especially — where I get it wrong.

Image photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash