Lesson No. 2: Compassion Comes at Too High a Cost

This is the second in a series of “Lessons Learned as a Young White Pastor in a Majority White Church Pursuing Racial Unity and Multiethnic Ministry in the Bible Belt South.”

Lesson No. 2: Compassion Comes at Too High a Cost

It was October 2017. And tensions were high in our national discourse. If you could call it that. There was far less conversation and far more condemnation. NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, was enacting nonviolent protests during the national anthem of football games. And all many could see was a black man stomping on their flag.

As a pastor of a majority white church pursuing racial unity and multiethnic ministry in the bible belt south, I felt compelled to address this conflict head-on. If our people could spar with one another on social media, why wouldn’t we wrestle with these realities together, led by God’s Word, on a Sunday morning?

And so, as we were looking at the Apostle Paul’s timely and timeless words on quarreling in 2 Timothy 2, I decided to be obedient to the text. To let it speak into our lives with power, meaning, and truth, rather than run from yet another uncomfortable conversation in our time.

Right as I mentioned Kaepernick’s name, though, an older white woman stood straight up. And walked right out. She was not going to have it. Even if she didn’t even quite know what “it” was.

You see, my message that day was a peacemaking venture for both sides to hear one other. I laid out a framework of Method, Message, and Mission.

One side was unwilling to hear Kaepernick’s Message because of his Method. They didn’t see a man exercising his freedom to protest systemic injustice. They instead saw freedom itself being trampled to the ground.

The other side was more concerned about the Message, all the while recognizing that no Method would ever be celebrated by those opposed to them. It wasn’t really the Method people were mad at: it was instead an unwillingness to see and believe the Message as true. That would be too costly.

We were at a major logjam.

So, middle child that I am, I aimed to invite both sides to step into shared Mission with one another as the church. And the Christ-centered kindling to this flame would be compassion.

Compassion means to “suffer with.”

If we could learn to “suffer with” as the Body of Christ, we could move mountains. But instead we were stuck throwing stones.

As I finished the sermon, I caught up with my co-pastor. A middle-aged African American man who’d been faithfully shepherding this flock for the last dozen years. He told me he’d gone out to see the white woman when she stepped out of the sanctuary. And in his most compassionate way, he sat with her and listened to her frustration.

But when I heard him share this, to be honest, I was frustrated. Not at him. But for him.

He was being a good pastor. Caring for his flock. But I was grieved at her actions. Because what she represented in that moment was so much of what I’d seen for so long.

All over social media for months upon months I watched as white people picked apart Kap’s protest; the kind of protest the prophets of the Old Testament would have carried out, speaking truth to the powers of their day. It was prophetic lament: a nonviolent cry calling for a community to own the wreckage of their own hands.

Yet, over and over again, I saw those who looked most like me choose “patriotism” over pathos. Condemnation over compassion. Shouting at over suffering with.

And here, on a Sunday in a sanctuary, a black male pastor had to comfort his white female congregant over a nonviolent protest aimed at acknowledging police brutality against people of color in this country carried out most often by white people?

All this was all wrong.

But what was behind it all?

Let’s look at some language together.

– – –

Sociologist and writer, Robin DiAngelo, describes “white fragility” as “the disbelieving defensiveness that white people exhibit when their ideas about race and racism are challenged—and particularly when they feel implicated in white supremacy.”

Often when I witness this, a white person needs to be comforted and assured they had no part in the pain of a people. And more often than that, I’ve seen white people look for that comfort and assurance from people of color.

I’ve done so myself. More than I realized in those many moments.

In a seminal seminary class on Race and Ethnic Identity in the New Testament, I remember sharing in our first session together about how I had felt uncomfortable before as a white man when I stepped into spaces where I was the minority. But what I feared was not that my body would be hurt, but instead, my pride. I wanted to be liked, welcomed, and received. And I knew that in some spaces a white man would be looked upon with fear, judgment, and hostility.

In my own insecurity, I could become frustrated and defensive. And I often did. In my whiteness, I needed a person of color to assure me I was one of the “good guys”. That they could trust me as a white man even if they couldn’t trust white people at-large.

My flesh was fragile. And honestly, at times, still is. But I’ve learned to live another way.

New language can shape new realities.

When I grappled with my own “white fragility”, when I glimpsed a wider understanding of my own reflexive responses in these race-based conversations, I then learned how to listen to my own emotions patiently and quietly. I let that inner dialogue work its way through my head, down to my heart, around my gut and out my fingertips. Peacefully passing on with open hands the need to defend my own defensiveness. And instead, with those same palms, I picked up something far greater: compassion.

As you wander the messy halls of social media these days, you’ll often find an instinctive response of fragility from people who look like me. It’s a fight or flight response.

As Rev. Julian DeShazier says, “Privilege is the ability to walk away.”

Walk away from the conversation. Walk away from the compassion. Walk away from the person. Walk away from the pain.

– – –

If you’ve ever seen someone who’s had to make a living with their hands, you’ll see skin that has been strengthened. But for those who have not, their skin remains soft. I think white fragility is a lot like that.

People of color have to bear the suffering from simply wearing their own skin each day of their lives. From the cradle to the grave. Along the way, their skin has to develop a resiliency and resolve in order to survive.

White people, on the other hand, never have to reconcile with the reality of our race. Instead, we see our whiteness as neutral. Status quo. An ideology of colorblindness robs our eyes of seeing the beauty of that which makes each and every one of us distinct. All made in the image of God with impeccable beauty, an orchestra of differences that ring true to the various cultures that shape us.

So because of the racialized homeostasis we envision from our point of view, we have come to accept our own “race” as normative. Yet, because of this, we are extra prone to disruptions that alter our off-kilter reality. And so we claw back for our own individual comfort rather than fall down in collective compassion.

But my white brothers and sisters: we must lay down our own pursuit of privilege and instead lift up our neighbor’s pain.

If we don’t understand a protest, then we must attempt to enter into a world that is different than the one we’ve always known. A reality that readily confesses:

I’ve never seen a black officer kneel into the neck of a white man on the ground until he loses consciousness.

I’ve never seen a curb full of white people have to shout for justice in an attempt to uphold the sanctity of their white brother’s life.

And to be honest, I don’t anticipate a day in which that video comes across my screen. Our society wouldn’t allow it. So why would we allow this?

– – –

I ran into an old friend couple nights ago. We’re neighbors these days. Same age. Birthdays as near as the houses we live in. Just down the road. He’s a black man. I’m white. And as we together shared in the suffering of George Floyd and the racism of Amy Cooper, he asked me as earnestly as possible, “Why do white people walk away from these conversations?”

You could see in his eyes the complete loss. The pleading. The pain.

This is a man that serves in a multiethnic church in a progressive part of our country. And even he was still left wondering, “Where are our white brothers and sisters in this?”

I didn’t have a good enough answer to give him. And I’m afraid I still don’t.

There is no justifiable response for why white people would walk away.

Except this: Compassion comes at too high a cost.

The cost? Confession.

– – –

To really “suffer with”, we must be willing to truth-tell about the long-standing part white people have played — both in the past and present — regarding the sin-shaped brokenness of racial trauma toward people of color.

And because of fear and fragility, this is a hard step for white people to take.

You see…

If I suffer with you, I must then confess with you that this world is not fair for you.

If I suffer with you, I must then confess my perception of reality is not the same as yours. And in fact, your lived reality may be more true than my perception of reality.

If I suffer with you, I must then confess that “whiteness” has historically not only been complicit in the suffering of people of color, but in fact has been the cause of such pain.

If I suffer with you, I must then confess that far too often I have catered toward my own comfort instead of choosing Christ-centered solidarity.

If I suffer with you, I must then confess that it’s time to pay the price for my pride and willingly lay down my privilege.

For many, it is just too hard to hop over these hurdles. But I would quickly remind us all these are not obstacles to overcome. Confession is a God-given sacred pathway toward holiness and healing.

You see, if I do confess. Oh, church. If we would confess. Oh, white brothers and sisters. If we could confess. Oh, saints. If we just confess.

Well, then we’d be taking one small step toward repentance.

And that. That must be a price we are willing to pay.

Compassion is costly. But the way of Christ always is.

So fear not. Take a step today. Confess. Even in fear. Even in fragility. And allow our God to begin a new work in you. A new work in us.