CONFESSION AS HEARTBEAT OF ANTI-RACISM
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
It had been months since I’d been near a large gathering of people. I suspect this was true for nearly everyone around me. But the murder of George Floyd dislodged something in our national conscience, and it prompted us to leave the safety of our homes. I stood on the edges of a neighborhood vigil as a young Black man took the megaphone. I was far from the speaker and couldn’t make out every word. Then I watched as hundreds of my neighbors knelt their bodies down to one knee. Young, old, people of all genders and colors, resting the weight of their bodies down onto one leg. I was disoriented. What was happening? Should I kneel? (It crossed my mind that this is what a visitor must feel as she sits at the back of a church for the first time. Why are they all kneeling? Should I kneel? Is this action open to me?)
As soon as I knelt, my body was set on fire with resonances. I felt the connection of a lifetime of kneeling in church, not just during the general Confession of Sins, but also to receive the Eucharist, two things I haven’t done in community for months now. As I knelt, my legs started to talk to me. It was surprisingly uncomfortable to have all of my weight on just one knee. And then with horror I could visualize the face of George Floyd on the ground there in Minneapolis, and in my body I could see the view that Officer Derek Chauvin had for the 8 minutes and 46 seconds where he knelt in that same posture, while Mr. Floyd called for his mother and gasped for his last breaths. On my knee, I felt the weight of the racism that wasn’t just in Officer Chauvin, but is also in me.
“Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone”
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 79).
The words of the confession in our Book of Common Prayer rose up within me as my body and mind connected. “For the racist thoughts I’ve had, for the silence I’ve kept, for the ways I’ve not loved my neighbor as myself, O God, have mercy on me, and forgive me.”
Within a few minutes, the speaker concluded his litany, and we rose to our feet. I longed to hear the words of absolution that come next in the service. But for that night, the confession would hang in the air on its own.
The next day I heard the author Ibram X. Kendi interviewed about his book How To Be An Antiracist. During the interview he said: "The heartbeat, historically, of racism has been denial — has been to deny that one's ideas are racist, that one's policies are racist, and certainly that oneself and one's nation is racist” . How many times have I said and heard those words? “I’m not racist.” “I’m color blind.” “I live in an integrated neighborhood and town.” “I marched for Civil Rights in the 60s.” “I’m not racist.” Kendi then went on to say that we have to let our denial die: “The heartbeat of anti-racism is confession, is admission, is acknowledgement, is the willingness to be vulnerable, is the willingness to identify the times in which we are being racist, is to be willing to diagnose ourselves and our country and our ideas and our policies.”
He finished by invoking the truth any of us who have ever done a Twelve-Step program know to be true: “The reason why [confession is] the heartbeat is because, like with anything else, the first step is acknowledging the problem. We can't even begin the process of changing ourselves, of acting in an anti-racist fashion if we're not even willing to admit the times in which we're being racist. And so I realized that essentially to be anti-racist is to admit when we're being racist.”
It strikes me that two of the main times we take to our knees in liturgy are during the Confession and to receive Eucharist. Many of us aren’t able to receive Christ’s Body and Blood during this pandemic. This has left many of us searching for spiritual grounding in this time of upheaval. Perhaps our abstention from Eucharist could offer the opportunity to explore different parts of our religious traditions? Perhaps now, given the unrest of the world, we might give ourselves more fully to the discipline of confession? As I watch new waves of athletes and coaches take to their knees at sporting events, I think of how we might stand in solidarity with them by taking to the knees in our liturgy. As I see protestors kneel down throughout the country, I wonder how our kneeling might also be an act of unity with the Black Lives Matter movement more broadly? We in the church already have physical and spiritual practice in this “heartbeat” of anti-racist work to which Kendi points. Perhaps it’s time we put that practice to use?
If you, like so many, have been watching your worship services online, it may have been a long time since you actually knelt to pray the Confession. I’ve had multiple people ask me if they should participate in the regular choreography of our worship together, even in their living rooms alone watching livestreamed services. My answer to them is yes (and yes, I know it’s awkward. But it’s also awkward in the church buildings, we’re just used to it.) There is power in the physical movement of putting the weight of our bodies on our knees. It gives our bodies a chance to connect to our minds and our minds to our souls. It gives us a moment to empathetically connect with all those who are taking on that same posture in all its various meanings. So the next time you worship, I invite you to take a moment for confession. You can use the words in our Book of Common Prayer or pray the words that rise up within your heart. Kneel down, keep silence for a moment, reflect on the times and ways you have been racist. Use the sacred words and structure of our liturgy to hold you in this moment. And before you rise back to your feet, join me in praying that God will indeed “strengthen us in all goodness” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 80) and lead us from our racism into liberation for all.
