For a long time, no one in Tulsa’s white or black communities talked about the massacre that destroyed the Greenwood district in May 1921. Those who were there remembered.  A few kept the memory alive.  But most simply chose to forget. Shrouded in silence for decades, it lay there in the heart of the city, eating away at it like a cancer.

History — especially difficult, painful history — needs to be remembered. It needs to be talked about, studied, examined and explored. Not to make people feel guilty or ashamed, but to be honest, forthright and aware of how history has shaped who we are and what we are about. A sanitized history only drives the painful stuff underground, where it eats us up and slowly destroys the fabric of society. Besides, a history with no pain, suffering or struggle is a lie.

I have always appreciated how honest the Hebrew Scriptures are about the painful history of the people of God. If you have any doubt about that, just read the prophetic writings. Why did God’s people preserve those difficult, painful indictments of their own greed, idolatry, disobedience to God’s commands and mistreatment of the poor and powerless? Because God’s people knew that, forgetting, they might turn their backs on God again, and they knew the results of doing that were disastrous.

Today, Tulsans remember. A year ago, we marked the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre with much fanfare and national attention. This year we will remember again. And we need to. The destruction of Greenwood still shapes this city. The systemic racism that led to the massacre persists. The work of reconciliation is ongoing. The debate over reparations for those who lost land and homes and lives continues, even though it has continued for far too long.

We need to remember. The Tulsa massacre may have been the worst racial violence of the early 20th century, yet massacres, lynchings and riots took place in communities across this country. In 1919 a massacre similar to Tulsa’s took place in Elaine, Ark. At the same time, not far from Tulsa, Osage people were being murdered so that whites might take their land. Today, racial violence continues to plague our nation, as we recently witnessed in Buffalo, NY.

Like the people who preserved the prophets’ writings, we also need to remember the churchs’ role in this difficult, painful and bloody history. Here in Tulsa, on the Sunday after the massacre, the black community was blamed for the death and destruction from pulpits across the city, including in our Lutheran congregation.

Across our church, we need to continue our work for racial justice. We need to study, with honesty and forthrightness, who we are and where we come from. We need to learn from the past and make the changes necessary to become the inclusive, grace-centered communities we aspire to be, where all people — no exceptions — can experience and live in the steadfast love of God that is ours in Jesus Christ.

To learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre, visit:

John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation

www.jhfcenter.org/

Tulsa Historical Society and Museum

www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/

History Channel: Tulsa Race Massacre

www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/tulsa-race-massacre

BIO: Michael Girlinghouse has been bishop of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod since 2011. Prior to becoming bishop, he served as a campus pastor at three universities and as a parish pastor. A devotional writer, he is author of Embracing God’s Future Without Forgetting the Past (Fortress Press, 2019). Bishop Mike graduated from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, has one adult daughter and lives in Tulsa, Okla., with his wife and their two dogs.

In recognition of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I share the journey of my achievements and struggles as a person of Asian descent in our church, and in our nation.

I immigrated to this country when I was seven years old, and the kids teased me by telling me to go home.

I learned to speak, dress, publicly act like the dominant culture, and people still told me to go home.

I graduated from college and became a productive citizen in our society, and people still told me to go home.

I graduated from seminary and served in a predominantly white denomination and church, and people still asked me, “When do you plan on going home?”

I considered serving in an Asian church but the immigrant Asian pastors and community elders felt I wasn’t Asian enough because my voice and language wasn’t theirs; I felt they were telling me to find a new home.

I served this country as a military chaplain for 21 years and held the hands of brave warriors as they entered life triumphant, and people still tell me to go home.

I supported and defended the Constitution while rocket-propelled grenades exploded around me, and people in this country still tell me to go home.

I moved up in the ranks of the military chaplaincy, higher than but for one other Asian in its history. Yet when I see that among the 37 senior ranking chaplains, there are only three chaplains of color, I hear them saying to me, it’s time for you to go home.

When I disagree with siblings in our church who tell me that the historical western theology, ecclesiology, vestment, and style of worshiping is normative, I feel like they are telling me to go home.

But America and this church is my home…the home I love, the home I’ve suffered in, and am willing to die for, the only home I really know.

When can I be home without people telling me to go home?

My story is one of many in the landscape of AAPI experiences in the ELCA, and in our nation.  Covid times have simply confirmed how so many do not view us as fully American. In fact, the surge in anti-Asian harassments and assaults solidified how this destructive view is still deeply embedded in the American psyche. Yet, with deep roots in the history and culture of our nation, our voice and contributions are very much a part of the American experience.

Together we can build toward a world where people of every background can be safe and can thrive. May God’s people show what church together means, in our actions for justice, and for peace.

bio  The Rev. Herbert Shao is a Director of Evangelical Mission for the Northwest Washington Synod.  He is also a member of the Association of Asians and Pacific Islanders-ELCA, one of the six ethnic associations of the ELCA.

In his Daily Meditation of February 6 on 1 Corinthians 12, Rev. Richard Rohr writes “Humanity consistently has to face the problem of unity and diversity. We’re not very good at understanding it. We habitually choose our smaller groups, because we don’t know how to belong to a larger group. That demands too much letting go.”

He notes that Paul’s doctrine of the Body of Christ “isn’t easy for Westerners to understand, because we are deeply trained in cultural individualism. So much so, we don’t even recognize our lack.” It seems impossible that anyone with eyes and ears open could fail to recognize the pervasive individualism in our country. For many, the synonym of “it’s a free country” is “you can’t tell me what to do.”

One advantage of belonging to a large group with internal diversity like the ELCA is that we can see varied cultures within a group whose defining culture we share. During Arab American Heritage Month, I would like to discuss an element of Arab-Middle Eastern culture that might help elucidate a different way of being in a group, a way of “letting go.”

For most of my life, the common translation of the Transfiguration story in Mark included a voice saying, “This is my beloved Son.” In more recent translations, we hear, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” These two versions may sound pretty much the same, but they are not. In the first, “beloved” is an adjective describing the son; in the second “beloved” is a name for the Son, an identification by relationship.

Almost anyone who has grown up in an Arabic-speaking family – even a person who didn’t master Arabic – knows the Arabic (and Aramaic) word for “beloved.”  It is a word we have heard dozens of times a day as parents and grandparents call to us and our siblings: habibi/ habibti. “Ya habibi, tha,” they might say. “Oh, my Beloved, come here.” While it sounds stilted in translation, it sounds quite appropriate in context. Importantly, it constitutes the replacement of a name by a relationship.

For many of us represented by the groups of color in the Church, our personal cultures insist that one’s identity is, at least in part, other-oriented. We shape identities based on our family and our community. In the case of those of Arab and Middle Eastern heritage, there is a sense that we are nothing without a family and community to help define us.

The internal relationships of Arab families reflect this cultural reality. Imagine, for example, a young Arab man named Ibrahim and his wife Mariam who have their first child, a son, whom they name Yusuf. From Yusuf’s birth he will be called Ibn Ibrahim, “the son of Ibrahim,” but his parents will also take on new names. They will be from that point on called Abu Yusuf, “father of Yusuf,” Um Yusuf, mother of Yusuf” by friends and family.

I have heard non-Arabs denigrate this custom: “Why should I give up my identity just because I became a parent?” But that is really the crux. This approach is not giving up one’s identity but expanding it in terms of relationships. In Arab culture, one is not defined in isolation but in connection, in relations. And that is a lesson those of Arab-American heritage can share with the Church: we cannot be fully who we are meant to be if we remain isolated individuals.

In his prayer at the Last Supper in John 17, Jesus describes how he views the ideal relationship with us: “that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us … that they may be one even as we are one.” Here, I believe, is the core of Jesus’ prayer and its most complex and mysterious part. When Jesus suggests that his followers can be one as he and his Father are one, he takes us directly to the mystery of the Trinity. In distinction from the other Western monotheistic religions, Christianity alone posits the person of God as built on relationship, a unity without uniformity. In praying that we be one as Jesus and his Father are one, he is envisioning a future in which his followers will take their identity in part from their relationships with others, unified but not uniform.

Dr. Ryan A. LaHurd is a spouse, father of two, and grandfather of five. He served as president of Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, N.C., an ELCA higher education institution, from 1994-2022. Dr. LaHurd, an Arab-American of Lebanese ancestry, has served as a teacher, administrator, author, and leader in many capacities, including with the ELCA Association of Lutherans of Arab and Middle Eastern Heritage. He and his spouse Dr. Carol Schersten LaHurd are members of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chicago.

Last Wednesday afternoon, after a day of virtually meeting and planning with Metro Chicago Synod (MCS) pastoral staff, I closed the Zoom window on my computer. Satisfied with our collective work, I took a deep breath, grateful for a wonderfully dedicated and highly competent team.

After a few moments, I glanced at my phone. Immediately, I realized that the notifications and text messages that I had received throughout the day were more than I could count. Friends, family, and colleagues, many of whom are of African descent, had reached out to me, shocked. Many texted me similar words. “They would have shot us,” they said, again and again.

“If it was us, we would’ve been shot.”

I opened the office door, shouting into the empty space, “What’s going on?” Two others were in the office. Neither of them had yet heard the news.

For me, Epiphany, January, the New Year, is a time of vision boards and new beginnings. Hope for something new greets us as we gaze at the child cradled in Mary’s arms. And yet, I saw no hope as I looked at this news.

As the headlines “The Capitol Under Attack,” “Far-Right Mob Attacks the Capitol,” “Mayhem in the Capitol,” and so on appeared on my screen, something happened in me psychologically. For a moment, time seemed to collapse. As I watched white supremacists carrying Confederate flags into the US Capitol, I recalled images of the same flag flown by plane over sporting events in 2020 and carried into Charlottesville in 2018.

Seeing white supremacists walking freely in a place that symbolizes our democracy, I saw, at the same time, the white supremacists who’ve been encouraged at rallies and marches across our nation, year after year, as leadership at our highest levels has refused to call out bigotry, acknowledge systemic racism, or condemn racist violence against people who look like me.

Seeing this crowd in DC receive a pep rally and praise from the president, I recalled images of tear gas released on peaceful protestors on those same DC streets, and I recalled the president posing with our sacred scriptures, blessing violence against the peaceful crowds.

Lastly, as I saw images of men and women, known neo-Nazis, and holocaust deniers holding banners, threatening violence, and carrying weapons, met with very little police presence, I could not help but also see images of Anjanette Young, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, and countless others, flashing through my mind—one scene, one death, one trauma after another, after another, after another. I could not help but see officers acquitted of the excessive use of force and officers acquitted of murder based on assertions of fear—acquitted because they claimed to be afraid.

“They would have shot us,” I heard again the words of my siblings.

“If it was us, we would’ve been shot.”

Yes, in seeing the events in Washington DC last week, I saw the events not only of the past four years but of much of my life. And this was not my experience, alone. It was also the experience of countless Black people and people of color all across this country, those who reached out to me, and those whom I have yet to meet.

Indeed, Wednesday was more than Wednesday. It was trauma, reopened, flooding back in, and forcing us to relive those moments of pain and oppression, again and again.

For me, Epiphany, January, the New Year, is a time of vision boards and new beginnings. Hope for something new greets us as we gaze at the child cradled in Mary’s arms. But the events of this past Wednesday were nothing to look forward to. Indeed, these events once again highlighted the disparities that exist in our nation, reminding us again that the pursuit of peace, justice, and equity must never cease.

As we search for an alternative future, the future of God envisioned in Jesus’ teachings about God’s Reign of Love, I’d ask that you recommit with me to the work of dismantling white supremacy in our hearts and in the world. Will you do this?

I ask also that you’d pray with me for all those who are currently living with renewed fear and resurfaced trauma and pain.

Of our leaders, I ask that you take this moment as an opportunity to have courageous conversations with your family, neighbors, and community. We trust that when we gather in Christ, God might instigate change in even the most hardened of hearts and that God, indeed, is with us as we work toward a church and a world where nobody has to say, “If it was us, we would have been shot.”

Bio: The Rev. Yehiel Curry is the bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, ELCA. He was born and raised on the south side of Chicago, where he still resides with Lashonda, his wife of 25 years, and their three daughters, Shemiah, Ashirah and Shekinah. Rev. Curry received his Master of Divinity from LSTC. He served as pastor to Shekinah Chapel Lutheran Church until he became the bishop, and office to which he was elected on June 8, 2019.

You remember the story of Jonah and the whale, right? God commands Jonah to preach repentance to his foes in the city of Nineveh. But Jonah wasn’t down with being God’s little messenger. Not about that. Not to them. So, he booked passage on the first ship heading anywhere but there. The Bible tells us plainly that Jonah “ran away from the Lord.”

That worked out about as well as you would expect and after many storms and tribulations Jonah found himself in the belly of a whale; saved from certain drowning by a God with a plan. In the belly of the whale, the reality of the task being asked of him became clear to Jonah. In the belly of the whale, the enormity of the force sending him to Nineveh became clear.

When I announced my intention to go to law school my mother’s family became suspiciously excited. As I went through the application process I talked with them about this school or that. A couple of days would pass, then worked casually into the next conversation somehow would be the stats for that law school’s Criminal Law department. They weren’t subtle. But I of course they thought criminal law. My grandfather was the first Black Genesee County (MI) deputy in the 1950’s. He studied law then finished his career as a magistrate. His only daughter (my mother) was a probation officer briefly. 3 of his 4 sons are, to this day, sworn law enforcement officers. One of them even married a state trooper! Adding a prosecutor to the family would complete the set.

But my distaste for criminal advocacy was years old by then. I was a precocious (read: nosey) kid. I would listen to adult conversations and easily decipher their unimaginative codes. I heard the stories of unnecessarily brutal arrests, cases that went up on scant evidence, hanging judges, and “facilities” (jails and prisons) unfit for humanity. My relatives believed, and still believe, that change can come from within the system and at the very least the system was a little less antiblack during their shifts. But I had no interest in being in the criminal law space. And honestly, I had passively accepted the culture’s prevailing attitudes about crime and criminals. Some neighborhoods simply do require a stronger police presence. I too looked over my shoulder at ATMs for “super-predators.” I took Criminal Law and Evidence because they were required then filled my schedule with Federal Labor and Employment Law, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. I was going to work a standard 9-5 resolving employment contract disputes via forced arbitration clauses (and get filthy rich doing it!) I kept maps of all the exciting places my jet-set lifestyle was going to afford me. Nineveh was not on the itinerary.

After many storms and trials I learned that my skills and talents lay with legislative and executive advocacy. I learned the basics then studied and honed it as the science and the art that it is. I advocated for domestic violence survivors and employees unfairly paid. I advocated for the fair treatment of our immigrant siblings. I advocated for the poor, the unhoused, the mentally ill. I’ve traveled abroad waving the banner for ecological justice and climate change abatement. And then the children. Always the children. I even found time to advocate for more green space in my own neighborhood. Everything and anything except anything that touched on crime or policing. Sure #BlackLivesMatter. But I don’t have to be the spokeswoman for it.

Then I spent I my three days in the belly of the whale. To be more precise the month of October 2019 broke me. It excised whatever small trace of “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear from the police” remaining in my spirit. Early that month my favorite human, my nephew Xavier, turned 8 years old. He got a new video game that he just loved. He wanted to play it with me. All. The. Time. Sometimes late into the night. We did that. He’s unreasonably scared of spiders. It’s one of those truly annoying things I love about him. I’m constantly called on to go 2 or 3 rooms away and kill the spider that he defiantly heard and is certainly on its way to come and get us. Sometimes he hears them outside. When I’m in a particularly generous mood I go and hunt for his imaginary spiders outside our front door.

Stop right now and Google the name Atatiana Jefferson.

When the news of her death reached the nation something in me broke wide open. It wasn’t just the fact of her death. It’s that her death made headlines for less than one news cycle. I was angry and heartbroken and incensed and grieved and irate and perplexed and exhausted and dying inside. I’m not certain when I was swallowed by the whale. But I was for sure in the belly of the beast; driving along the beautiful California coast from Sacramento to Monterey to offer a keynote address at the synod professional leaders conference– blind through tears. I don’t remember, and it doesn’t really matter what I actually said to the Lord in my car that afternoon. “In my distress I called to the Lord, and the Lord answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and the Lord listened to my cry.”

Through the sacrifice of one beautiful black life, I fortified a voice that advocates for Black bodies.

I’m not yet in Nineveh. I am only now beginning to understand the reality of the task set before me. Through my television screen filled with visions of cities all over the world rallying and rising and rioting I am just now learning the enormity of the source sending me. I am stumbling and fumbling and walking slowly and being led by the Spirit and those who have been on the road longer. I’ve been practicing what I will say when I arrive. I’ve begun saying small snippets in places I would have never dared before. I’ve rallied more. I’ve organized more. Staff meetings are different with me around now (thank you for making space for this, Amy Reumann.) I’ve begun saying in larger and larger spaces that the system we’ve built around crime and punishment requires repentance. I’ve been inviting others into the conversation. But we have not yet arrived in Ninevah. There’s still room for you on the road.

Bio:

Regina Q. Banks lives in Sacramento, CA where she proudly serves as the Director of the Lutheran Office of Public Policy- California. She is very active in her community, dedicating most of her free time to organizing public advocacy to support a host of social and political causes. She is a lifetime member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (a public service organization) and, when permitted, shares her life with an ill-tempered chihuahua named Ender Jay.