How Lament Leads to Racial Reconciliation

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Mark Vroegop
Well, today, our aim is to have a helpful dialogue about how lament and racial reconciliation go together. Or maybe to think about it this way, how lament opens a door for racial reconciliation. So we’re not going to suggest that lament solves all the problems, we’re going to suggest that it may be a tool that could help shape the nature of the conversation to move us to a better place together in the church and individually. So I’ve got some friends that we’re going to dialogue together with. So Irwin and Kori, thank you so much for joining us today. And Jason Cook was supposed to be with us, unfortunately, he had a flight cancellation. So he’s not able to be on the panel today. So what we’ll do is we began How about if you just each individually, introduce yourselves to the audience, tell us a little bit about who you are what you do. And that’d be helpful to start a conversation. So everyone wants to start us?

Irwyn Ince
Well, good morning, everyone. It’s good to be with you all this morning here and in online. My name is Erwin ence, and I serve as a pastor at Grace DC church in the nation’s capital. I also serve as the executive director of our Institute for cross cultural mission, which is an organization ministry that we where we seek to come alongside Christian organizations and churches to help equip folks with competence and confidence for this kind of, for this kind of work in Jesus name. So that’s a little bit about myself.

Kori Porter
Amen. Hey, guys, good morning. All right, let’s go. My name is Cory Porter. I’ve for the last 13 years have been doing campus ministry. And so the Lord has blessed me in that field. And I’m so thankful. But recently, I’ve been named CEO of Christian solidarity worldwide, which is a Christian human rights group, and we work with persecuted peoples around the world.

Mark Vroegop
That’s awesome. I’m Mark Vroegop. I’m the lead pastor at College Park church here in Indianapolis. So welcome to our fair, lovely, beautiful, not weather awesome city today. We’re glad to have you here. And I’ve done some writing on the subject of lament, and particularly tried to apply that in racial reconciliation spaces over the last year and privileged to be the moderator of this panel today. So we’re going to talk about lament and racial reconciliation. And we’re dropping into a conversation that we all know is loaded, fraught with misunderstanding about terms definitions, sometimes it’s like we’re having a conversation. We don’t even know what people are saying, because we don’t even know what the terms mean to each other. So let’s start briefly, to just define some key terms. So lament opens the door for racial reconciliation. So let’s start with the word race. So Erwin, what do we mean? What do you mean by race?

Irwyn Ince
I’m glad you said briefly. I think that was directed at me, it was. So So race really is a social construct, it was created by human beings. race is a social construct that was developed for an a distinct purpose of separating people, or categorizing them based primarily on physical characteristics, to serve the interests of those who were in positions of privilege, and power. And so that would be white folks in the West, right? created this categorization of putting people in racial categories based on their physical characteristics. So I’ll stop there, we could go further. Because I know that just begs more questions, but let me just stop,

Mark Vroegop
stop there. And then we say, racial reconciliation. We could also say, ethnic harmony, but let’s just use the term racial reconciliation. Cory, how would you explain to somebody what do we mean by racial reconciliation?

Kori Porter
Yeah, and just because we’ve learned on terminology, I’m going to double back to Erwin just for a second. So far as you you said that race is a social construct, which I completely agree with But just for a term before I do racial reconciliation, because it makes no sense to talk about if it’s a social construct, what about ethnicity? Can you just give a quick definition of the the ethnicity?

Irwyn Ince
So, so right, they are often used interchangeably, right? But ethnicity is something that is formed from who we are in terms of our, our cultural context, right? Who are the folks that I grew up with? And we have certain characteristics now. And so ethnicity is not simply physical characteristics, right? It goes deeper into the values and the beliefs and the practices of a of a people group. And so there’s a difference there. Sometimes you can talk about them in the same way. But there is a there’s a difference.

Mark Vroegop
Thank you for this good follow up question. So, so to racial reconciliation, how would you define that for us? Yeah.

Kori Porter
So I think racial reconciliation, that’s such a big word nowadays, right? You guys feel that anxiety. That’s why you’re here. You want some solutions about it, man. So I think we step back for a moment and just break the word apart. And so racial, and then reconciliation, I will start with the latter. Because we know in our faith, that reconciliation should just be a part of our natural Christian wife, like you should be reconciled to your wife, if you’re going through something a man, you should be reconciled to your neighbor if there’s a problem. And so when you see reconciliation, you see it in Matthew 18. It is a command that you go when there’s an offense, there’s an identification of the problem, there’s a confession of the situation. But in that it says that you try to win your brother over to be reconciled back once there’s a contrition and can triteness apart. And then we go into the racial part where there’s I think, is da Horton, who says that the complication of reconciliation, racial reconciliation is a problem because it says that therefore at one time, we had been reconciled. And so there’s debate of whether or not black and white particularly in America have ever been reconciled before. And so I would back up to say, Well, maybe not specifically black and white to be reconciled in the States. I do think in the biblical narrative, we see in Ephesians, two, that mankind has been made one and they have been reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ. So in the ethnic group, when he takes you and takes Gentiles and makes them one by His internal blood, and therefore I say racial reconciliation is based off the terms in the scripture of Ephesians. Two more than it is in a social construct. Good.

Mark Vroegop
Yeah. So we’re gathered here as Christians, trying to figure out a conversation that in the cultural, dynamic and historical context, it has been very difficult, very challenging. And one of the reasons that we’re involved in this conversation is because of the vision that gospel unity creates racial harmony, like look at the end of the Bible, like that’s true, that happens. And so it would just seem that the Church of any entity in the world ought to have a competency in this conversation, because of the identity underneath all other identities, namely, the identity that we have in Christ. So more than my ethnic identity more than my racial identity, my Christian identity is what makes us together, even before anything else. And so one of the things I think that would just be amazing to see is for the church to take both that theological category, and then practically work that out in a way, that hasn’t always been true. In fact, more often than not, hasn’t been the case. So here we are 2021. We’re Christians, we have this gospel narrative. We know that Jesus Redeems people from all tribes, nations in tongues, and yet, this conversation is still really hard, and really important. So Erwin, why do you think it’s so important? And why do you think it’s so hard? So two parts?

Irwyn Ince
Well, I mean, you’ve already set it up in terms of why it’s so important. And I would just kind of double down on that, in the sense that, okay, there’s only one identity that can bear the weight of the center of how I understand myself. And that’s my identity in Christ. If I put anything else at the center, it, I will turn it into an idol, it can’t carry the load, right? And so, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that what we’re after, because we have a shared identity in Christ is uniformity. Right? We desire to see unity in the body of Christ, not uniformity, our our difference, and our diversity was intentional by God. And so, it’s important to press into how do we prove pursue unity in diversity? That’s why it’s so important. Add one, it’s, and and we have to press in that way. Because that’s what it means for us to be the image of God, because God himself is unity and divine. or city, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. Right. And so that has every implication for who we are, and who we’re called to be. And the reason it’s so hard is simply put sin, but that sin working itself out into division and brokenness, and fractures, so that so that I do get my sense of identity. And my sense of humanity solely from my tribe, my people, my group, my who are my people, and I don’t, we don’t naturally look at different and appreciate the beauty in the difference. And the aspect of what it means to be in the image of God and a difference. We distrust, we say, Okay, if you really want to be fully human, become like us, if we let you. And so that’s why it’s so hard. And that’s why to use our sisters reference to Ephesians. Two. That’s why we see that kind of language in scripture where Paul says that Christ in His body has broken down the dividing wall of hostility to make one new humanity doesn’t eradicate that some people are Jewish, and some people are Gentile. Right? So

Mark Vroegop
it’s awesome. Cory, why is it so important and so hard?

Kori Porter
I mean, again, it’s the gospel. I mean, that Ephesians two pass, it has carried me through when racial reconciliation in the most hardest times, in Ephesians. Two, it says that I am reconciled to God. And in my own personal sanctification walk again, I don’t care what I’m struggling with, I fight for my intimacy with the Lord. And he says in John, He says that, first of all, he says, How can you say, You love the God in which we have not seen and not love the brother in which you can, you have seen and Ephesians two, it says that that eternal blood has been purchased me something, or redeemed something for me. So if I’m gonna fight for my salvation, in a sense of like, my sanctification, I’m gonna fight for my holiness, and I’m gonna fight for my community. And so as part of why is important is because it’s the gospel is the gospel woman, I want to live and grow into the righteousness and the fullness of Christ in every area of my life. And so I think that’s the challenge to the church.

Mark Vroegop
So good, you know, in the city of Antioch, and this is just so compelling to me, we have the really the first kind of major multi ethnic church plant, and it just blows the mind of the church. And in the community. Antioch was a segregated city. And the people of the city didn’t know what to call these people who are hanging out are the Jews and the Gentiles. So we need to think of a different name for them. And so they call them Christians. And so to me, at the core of who our identity is, as Christians is this thing that says, Jesus is more important to us than anything else, and causes us to lean toward one another, not away from each other, that I love my brother, because he’s my brother or my sister, because she’s my sister. And that also means that in the midst of really hard moments, I’ve gravitated towards them because of who they are in Christ, even though their experience or how they see an event, or how they wrestle with the implications of ethnicity or race lands on me differently than it does on them. So that’s where lament has been helpful in my thinking, not as a ultimate solution, but as one tool, realizing that as I started having conversations with black brothers and sisters about some of the things that they were struggling with wrestling with, I realized, well, wait a minute, they’re lamenting, and once I understood that, that was helpful. It was a helpful category, again, didn’t solve all the problems, but it changed the nature of what I was hearing, and then how to be able to engage. So let’s not assume that everyone in the room or watching understands what the word lament is. So let’s start with just the definition of lament and where we kind of find it in the Bible. And then we’ll move to the application of racial reconciliation. So define lament for us.

Irwyn Ince
Yeah, let me define it, or attempt to define it by maybe describing it. You know, the prophet Jeremiah, well known as the weeping prophet. And you hear this cry of dereliction in Jeremiah nine and verse one, he says, he says, Oh, that my head were a river of water, and that my eyes were a river of tears. He says, that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughter of my people. Write it is this, this cry of desperation. It involves a deep sense of, of grief and and pain, because things are not the way they ought to be. And it can’t. And it often seems as though God is absent in that. And so it brings this deep sense this, this deep burden, this sense of being in a valley, right? And so that’s more of a, I don’t know if that gives you a description or definition. But that’s what lament looks like. Right? That’s, and we see it in the scriptures. It’s the primary question that that of lament in the scriptures in the Psalms in particular, how long? How long? Oh, Lord, will you hide your face from me? Forever? How long must I go on? Weeping day and night? Right? The martyrs and Revelation How long, Lord, to you avenge our blood on the earth? Right? This is the cry of lament it’s grief and mourning, and pain particularly brought before God.

Mark Vroegop
So awesome. Yeah, I’ve once you see this, you begin to see it all over the Bible. And in some respects, many of us who’ve kind of discovered lament, it’s like lament finds you. It’s rarely kind of go after it. It finds you because of pain. And you’re in it explains me oh, this is what I’ve been doing in my life these last number of years. So Cory, give some examples. Where might people find lament in the in the in the Bible, other places that we would know that hit go here? You can see it?

Kori Porter
Yeah, I love what you said Irwin, that was really beautiful. In addition to that, something that struck me was in the story of Lazarus, you guys know it very well. And in his story, what you see and you hit on it, Mark, you talked about the ability to identify that someone is in pain. Like when you when a conversation about race, I am not having an intellectual conversation with you. I’m having conversations of black woman who’s a Christian woman, and I’m in pain, right? I’m experiencing suffering, my friendship, my community, my black church is experiencing suffering. And in that story of Lazarus, he identified the Mary Mater, are suffering. And because they have different personality types, different backgrounds, he approaches them differently. And it’s okay. So I know when white brothers and sisters suffer, I’ve discipled a lot of them in, in college ministry, I realized there’s some times with some of them, there’s this almost like any 15 articles, right? Amen to process by grief. And when he goes to Martha, there’s a theological conversation about Lazarus death. But when he goes to Mary, Mary is crying is the same Mary that wipes her, her hair with Jesus’s feet. And in her suffering, she has an emotionality because that’s the way it struck her. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s not anti intellectual, that’s made in the image of God. Both are beautiful. And in that story, what I love the most is it says that Jesus sees her in her weeping, and he weeps. But let me let me turn this up a little bit more, because this blew me away in his text. He weeps because it says that he sees the she and the Jews are weeping. But also it says that because he loved Lazarus, it was that what she loved, he loves. So if I as your sister in Christ, and black, and I love my black community, there should be something about the affection that we have for each other, that points you to a broader black community. It’s not that Corey is okay, because she’s my one black friend, no black people, right? are okay, they’re made more than okay, they’re excellent. They’re good. They’re right. They’re great in the image of God, just as my white brothers and sisters are made an image of God and right and good. There’s something beautiful about the story of Scripture that paints that out, that lament can be seen, and powerful ways that bring restoration and healing. And I just think Jesus made that very clear to us.

Mark Vroegop
That’s awesome. You know, a third of the psalms are limits. So think of that one out of every three songs that was in the official song book of God’s people, reflected sort of this minor key song and tone, which tells us that the world is really broken. And then laments are both moments of empathy and also exile. So God’s people pray lament prayers, when they’re the other. They pray, limit prayers when they feel as though they’re on the outside of God’s goodness, because of hard circumstances or they’re in Babylon, and they’re asked to sing songs of Zion, and, and there’s a sense of a protest god, this is wrong, this hurts. And then also a song of this is a hard world in which we live. And so if lament is a kind of a prayer in pain, it’s supposed to lead us somewhere to trust not only in God but also to trust one another. It would seem that that kind of language could be helpful. I think that it is helpful in the conversation about racial reconciliation. And I think understanding it as a category first and foremost is helpful. Oh, this brother sister is lamenting, let me lament with them. So speak specifically to how you think. And Ervin will start with you how lament can be helpful in the racial reconciliation conversation just in general, that I would like for both of you just to address how do you think it would be uniquely helpful for black brothers and sisters? And then I’m going to speak to how I think it could be uniquely helpful for white brothers and sisters, as we kind of think about how do we move this conversation instead of like this, that we’re moving it like this? And can limit be a part of that. So high level, how could lament categorically be helpful in this conversation?

Mark Vroegop
So we’re made in in for community and connection. God designed us not to be solo projects, but to be in communion and relationship and fellowship. And so what Sister Corey just said, is exactly the point. Right? Jesus weeping with this sister, because she’s weeping. And that point of connection, that you my pain, our pain matters to you. And it communicates to me. It communicates love. If you don’t even have to say a word. Right? I mean, we, we’ve, you know, we’ve studied, you studied the book of Job and we know, like, like, Job’s friends messed up the minute they open their mouth, because they were trying to fix it. They’re trying to fix his pain. They were trying to theologic theologizing his pain, explaining, yeah, explain it away. Like they knew better than God. And but when they just sat with him, in silence, and he in the pain, and they couldn’t fix it, they knew they couldn’t fix it. He knew he couldn’t fix it. Right? There’s fellowship, and there’s communion, and there’s embrace, right? And so it speaks a word of embrace and love when we lament. Again, that doesn’t mean I come and I tell you, I’m lamenting with you. Right? It might just mean showing up and sitting down. Right. That’s so awesome. And you said a second part to that. Right. See, you said brief, right.

Mark Vroegop
The question is, let me think about it. How How would How could limit categorically be helpful in the conversation about racial reconciliation?

Kori Porter
Yeah, I think is a is a category is almost new and recent, right? For a lot of us in our approach to racial reconciliation. We’ve always even in the black community, we had to give ourselves permission to lament, that was a real shift for us. And when we realized that this is suffering and pain, and this is agony, then we were able to lament and cry out to God, and not feel like oh, I just need to suck it up. For instance, I was in a space. And there was a person who was continuously coming against me with racial epithets and different things and gender. And I would pull because Matthew 18 is real, pull him aside. And I would say, Hey, brother, could you not do this, or Hey, brother, this was offensive. And it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And for two years, I sat with that, because in the space that I was in, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to cause a problem. But I was struggling. And when I would drive into work almost every day, I would pull up side of road, and I would just be crying. And the one thing I said to myself, I say, Cory, suck it up. What does that even mean? Suck it up? Like why do I not have a category that I can commit an offense to my humanity, I had to grow and learn that lament is part of the process. And it’s okay. It’s good. It’s right. And God sees that he interested in so I think Lumina is really important to the process.

Mark Vroegop
Yeah. It’s so good. I’m really glad that you shared that example. Because in the grief space, not the reconciliation, racial reconciliation space, I found that many Christians think that real Christians don’t limit they think that the standard is I’m grieving, but I go to church and I fake it say I’m fine. Or on the other side of the equation. They think that if I’m really implementing I must not be a Christian. So I see like there’s two ditches, one ditches, denial everything scrape, the other is despair. And I think somewhere in between there is this lament piece that relates not only to grief in general, but specifically as a relates to the pain connected to race related things that just become so problematic, historical, and just, in some cases feels like I don’t know where to go with this with this pain. So, you know, survey of American history would show that one of the primary if you look for lament in the American church, you could find it, especially as relates to African American spirituals. So here’s a language of people who are suffering, who put their prayers to music. Not every spiritual is a prayer, but many of them were and are. So how do you think that lament uniquely served, let’s just take the black community or the minority community for the issues and the difficulties behind racial pain? And then I’m going to speak to where I think it might be helpful to white brothers and sisters to understand how how the Met might be helpful as well as they engage in conversations.

Irwyn Ince
Let me say how it has been helpful, particularly in the African American Christian experience. You mentioned the Negro spirituals, and James Weldon Johnson, who is most popularly known as the one man who composed what came to be known as the Black national anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing. In the early 1900s. He and his brother Jay rose Aman Johnson, compiled a two volume hymnal, the books of American Negro spirituals, and James Johnson in the introduction, he he said, you know, he’s writing this, this tribute to the spirituals. And he says, Here’s what happened. With how did all of these Negroes, these black people, enslaved, oppressed in America? How did they become Christians? And he said, at the precise moment was found, or what they found was the, the exact or precise religion for their condition. That Christianity was a religion that spoke to their condition of even being enslaved. And out of that rows, this body of music that says, that offers a lament to God. Nobody knows the trouble. I see. Nobody knows but Jesus, right. And so it has served, and so that there’s communion in community in singing it together. That’s how it sir, there’s hope in the singing of the lament together. It provides a sense of hopefulness. And even if your physical condition does not change, enables you to persevere and endure through

Mark Vroegop
so good. So can I have you personalize your story even a little bit further? So you’re in the car, you’re lamenting? What what did that do for your soul to be able to do that? How was in that situation? How was lament helpful for you to kind of make it through a situation that was enormously painful that didn’t look like it was maybe going to change in a way that was going to be spiritually or emotionally helpful? Yeah.

Kori Porter
And the answer is short, I didn’t allow myself to limit. I did what I said suck it up. And I went to work. And that was the problem. Because you carry that anxiety when you don’t allow filament into your workspace, and you carry that tension into your body. And regardless, if you think you’ve sucked it up, and people don’t know what’s going on it, it comes out. It’s like you and your wife are arguing, arguing or your husband arguing. And you think the kids don’t know, the case, though. Like, they know there’s something out there. And that’s what happened. I carried it in. And so unfortunately, I think if I would have gave myself time to lament to talk to a therapist to talk to a disciple or towards his space, then I would have been in a space that was way more healthier.

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, so good. You know, as a husband as a purse, man in general, like I just, I want to fix things. And so one of the challenges in my marriage is I have to be okay with not fixing things, you know, and my wife has often said to me, I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t fix it. And I didn’t even know that was a thing. So that’s a category that exists so I had to learn that exists. I don’t like that exists. I wish it didn’t exist and sometimes I’m not sure it should exist, but that is troublesome get in trouble mark. So Doing good? Yeah. I could do a marriage therapy how long Oh Lord, right. So. But I find that, you know, lament is one of the most theologically informed things that I do. I lament, because I believe God is good, but life is still hard. And when I’m inclined to fix it, when I see something when I, when I see the pain in black brothers and sisters, or Hispanic brothers, or sisters, or Asian American brothers and sisters, and I see their pain, and everything within me wants to say, I hate this, I want to fix this. And I can’t, then my strategy, unhelpful, unhelpfully might have been previously, like I do with my wife asking unhelpful questions, or making unhelpful comments. And instead, it seems to me at least been helpful to me that if I can just sit beside my brother or sister, who’s experiencing some level of racial trauma, or difficulty or pain, and just be there, like Job’s friends and acknowledge, I don’t understand. And I’m really sorry. And I can’t wait till Jesus makes this right. But until that day, I’m going to walk with you. And I think there’s a difference if that’s, I have found, if that’s my first step, it makes a world of difference in the conversation versus, hey, let me litigate your pain. Let me analyze it, let me question it, let me like, that doesn’t work in my marriage. And it certainly doesn’t work in other relationships in the context of the church. So how have you experienced somebody lamenting with you in the midst of the racial reconciliation, conversation that was helpful, like, Give us an example of something that’s really good? And then I’m going to ask a Secondly, what’s been unhelpful? And I’m sure you have a number of stories in that respect. So Cory, what’s what’s been helpful?

Kori Porter
Can I really quickly double back on what you just said, I have no concept of Stranger Danger is very weird. You go into me, I think you’re my best friend. It’s just the weirdest thing. But I’ve dealt with a friend ship that she had a previous friendship that was very traumatic, and she was in suffering. So when we became friends, it was almost like I had to show patterns of behavior that she could trust me. And just it’s okay that black people may not trust you initially, like show up steel. And when people see you show up for them, what ends up happening is they start to release. And then this story actually ties into the story. I was at a church and I was in covenant community with churches, white Evangelical, and I love my church.

Kori Porter
I certainly did. But with Mike Brown situation happened. And as we know, that pretty much started to show some things that were going on in the church in America. And I went down to St. Louis, I was just overwhelmed. I saw it, I was in a very white space. And I was like, I don’t know what I need to do. But I feel like I need to be there. So I traveled down and I went there. And just what I experienced to see a warzone in St. Louis, with tanks in army men dressed in army fatigue, and the whole nine yards, and you go into the Canfield green apartments. And when Mike bought brown body lay for four hours, four to six hours uncovered in his community, a boy, 17 years old body laid in the community, you have people have flowers, and berries and all type of things there. And you had, you just had the community there, you had people, you know, protesting and whatnot. So I leave that space. And the only reason why I left that space was, was because I felt like God had called me to a covenant to a people that was not there. And so I left to go to my covenant to my people to my church, the first identity, right?

Kori Porter
And when I get to church, you would have thought Jesus had came back is Easter Sunday, people have an atomic day life, like St. Louis and ripping apart over there. We talk about America, we talk about how great it is that God has made our bowels and the places in which we are and we’re American people. But right there, even if it’s not a black identity, your American identity, something is suffering, and you’d have thought nothing has happened. And that cognitive dissidence when they’re talking about how, what is combat felt, I was like using one more verse, Lord, I’m gonna snap. But what God did was so precious to your point, Mark, God sent a woman she knew I had went there. I didn’t tell anybody else in the church. But I had told her and she came down from the balcony, she left her children. And she came to the Pew with me. And I was I was I was getting to a place to hear me clearly. Because hopelessness was setting in my heart was starting to feel what hate. It just was. I’m being very honest here. And in that place where hate was starting and bitterness was starting to take root. All she did was put her arm around me and say, Oh, Cory, and she wept with me. It is so difficult to hate somebody who weeps with you. That’s the point that’s lament. I didn’t know what had happened to me in that experience, but I know it kept me and I don’t have a theological whatever, but I know it kept me limit can keep you it can keep you in community.

Mark Vroegop
So good. Yeah, it’s not the only step. But if it’s not an early step, you don’t get to the other steps. Yeah. And there’s so many other areas that we could apply lament to, with other things that folks have experienced trauma or difficulty or pain in. This just happens to be one of them. So I’m sure you have experiences as well, of folks who man this was really helpful in the middle of a moment. What would what would you share there? And,

Irwyn Ince
yeah, I mean, I am, I’m privileged right now to, to be in a church, particularly where our leadership is just very healthy, and relationally connected in a diverse group of, of pastors, and elders. And not to say that, you know, we don’t have our issues, but is different than I’ve ever experienced in terms of when I, I’m in that place of pain, when the trauma of being black in America is weighing on my life. These brothers see me. And that’s it. That’s how I would just just describe it. Even to what, like being seen. So even even before a painful moment sets in, like, I know, in this place I’m seeing, I know in this place, that they’re going to see me and they’re going to be reaching out to me, they’re going to be sitting with me. And even having that awareness allows for all as a preventative for that sense of hopelessness setting in like going in. It’s weird, because it’s almost just a sense of gratitude that I can grieve here. I can grieve here. And it’s okay. Right? I mean, I’ll stop there.

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, I wish it wouldn’t, because that’s so compelling. And really, that that really is the vision of what the church should be. Because if that can’t happen in the church, then where in the world can that happen? And I think that’s part of the reason why, I think if any entity in the world has a shot, at actually creating an environment where true unity, ethnic harmony, racial reconciliation can be seen and felt it is in the church. And let

Irwyn Ince
me Can I add something, it goes in multiple directions. So in this same group, right of pastoral staff, we have Asian American pastors as well, right. And so I’ve recently had opportunity to come alongside and lament and mourn with my Asian American brothers. Right as they are, as they are grieving as it’s hitting them hard. Right? The, the, the explosion in anti Asian, racism and, and hatred, right. And so it’s not a one one way ticket, so to speak. There’s a right there’s a leaning into embracing more and more brokenness in this.

Mark Vroegop
So we’ve got less than a minute, so let me just, it’s been an amazing conversation. I’m not gonna throw it to any either of you. We’re going to wrap up here. So don’t don’t panic, like Cody’s like, oh, no, it’s coming to me. 15 second answer on this subject. I think what I like to do is just close with an illustration that I find to be somewhat informative to this conversation back to the marriage analogy. One time they came and sat next to my wife, she’d had a long day began telling me what her problem was. And about 15 seconds into the conversation, I knew exactly what she should do about it. And so I immediately told her, interrupted her, and she looked at me and she said, Who are you right now? That’s when I knew I was in trouble as a husband. And I said, who would you want? And she said, I would like my husband. And I said, Okay, if he was here, what would he be doing right now? And she said, he would be quiet. He would live listen, and he would hold me while I cried. And I said, Let me go get him. And so let us do so. So I walked out of the room, and I came back in and we replayed the conversation? And that was a huge moment where I learned the importance of the order of particular expressions of Christianity in the moment in issues related to pain. And her question, Who are you was really important? And I find as relates to racial reconciliation, that same question applies, that when my brothers and sisters are in pain, I think the first question that I need to ask is, who am I, and if I’m a brother and sister in Christ, and my brothers and sisters are in pain, then what ought to be my first disposition, my first step in helping to move us together, it’s not the only step we have to do more than just simply lament.

Mark Vroegop
But if we don’t lament, the opportunity to get engaged in those additional steps, is severely limited. So it just seems to me that weeping with those who weep ought to be the specialty discipline of those who know the man of sorrows, who was acquainted with our grief. And so thank you guys for being a part of this conversation. And so thankful for your insights, your help, and I hope that you, as a participant in this panel today, and as those watching are, were helped by it. And with that, let me pray for us as we close a father in heaven, we thank you that the end of the story has already been written. And there’s coming a day when our faith will be sight, and will gather before you Jesus as a people from every tribe, nation and tongue. We thank you that that’s your vision and your purpose for redemption. And we want to model that in our individual relationships and in the church. And so we pray, Lord, that You would help us to know what our role is one conversation, one relationship, one church at a time, God that the gospel light could be seen clearly, that a world might be stunned at the way that people in the body of Christ, Love one another and bear each other’s burdens and ask the question, what makes this possible, oh, Lord, we long for that day, acknowledging that we still have a long ways to go. And so strengthen us for this important journey, and help us, Lord, to know what it means to love and to weep with those who weep and we pray this in Jesus name, Amen. And Amen. Thanks for tuning in. And thanks for coming today. God bless you