Race in the Heart of the Church by Heather Donald

“Empathy” and “integration” are the two words you’ll hear a thousand times if you’ve heard them once as a TEDS counseling student. I’d like to put both to use here.

This is, I believe the first time during Black History Month I’ve sat in a room where matters of race in America were engaged. In the last couple weeks I’ve had the privilege to hear folks speak on race and social justice and to talk with folks about race and social justice, and at this point, I feel the need to integrate.

The place I’d like to start is to ask us to observe where in passages like Isaiah 1 and 58, Matthew 25, James 1 and 2 the word “empathy” is found. Yeah, it’s not written there or anywhere else in Scripture, but I’d like to suggest it’s functionally used in Scripture just as prolifically as in counseling classes.

The common charge to the Church coming through these passages is to attend to, even advocate for the needs of those who are poor and oppressed. Discussions on race in America won’t run long before matters of poverty and oppression are raised, we’ll find across the board the people groups who have suffered the most oppression in this country (blacks and American Indians) are those who bear the greatest weight of the effects of poverty. That said, let’s integrate.

In a discussion this week on race in America a friend said she believes one can’t advocate for people one doesn’t love. Well, who of us would think we don’t love any person just because of race? Maybe we’re feeling like, “okay, passed that test”. Where I think we need to check ourselves is in the area of empathy.

Empathy is about putting yourself into another person’s shoes. When it comes to race and poverty and justice, you’re thinking about what it feels like to wear those boots with the bootstraps that you’re using to pull yourself up out of poverty, or you’re thinking about what it feels like to not have the money to buy the boots, or what it feels like to not be allowed into the boot store—maybe you’ve got to wait for boots to be handed out to you knowing you won’t be asked whether they fit…how’s that feel? How do you think about that?

Empathy is at the core of the heart we’re looking for behind our good deeds. Empathy is what we hear in God’s heart when He says in Matthew 12:20, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out”—God gets where we’re at. If God’s heart is to bring His justice to the people of this world, and He wants to use us for that, our hearts for justice need to be hearts that draw near to people, close enough to get where they are at.

So, we can integrate social concern with Scripture, that seems to be a common point for discussion to revolve around. What’s next is integration in the Church. I’d like to suggest, with deep conviction, that the Church will not be a very useful tool for justice unless we get serious about empathy in matters of social concern. We need to seek out relationships that give us the opportunity to listen to where someone whose background is different is coming from. We need to be open to being challenged, offended, even unsure about what to do next. Americans, we have so much to be deeply proud of and thankful for, but we’re also feeling, living the effects, during Black History Month 2009, of atrocities we are slowly, too slowly gaining distance from.

Let’s listen, listen carefully, listen sacrificially to today’s stories as they’re being written into another chapter of history. We will hear through them God’s call to the Church today, echoing still from Isaiah, Matthew, James, a call to see, by God’s grace more justice written into this chapter than the one before. Let’s love our neighbors well enough to get where they’re at, and ask God for wisdom to see how love meets with justice, knowing this enables us to reflect the heart of our astoundingly merciful God alive in us.