Dear People of Christ Church,
I’ve written several versions of this post trying to get to the bottom of what, exactly, I was doing for my time at Wild Goose Festival last week. Part of the standard clergy employment agreement is to have two weeks of “continuing education” time. I’ve gone to Wild Goose Festival now three times as part of that, and also used the time for retreats and conferences. So there is a sense of accountability around it—our parishes generously provide for this (and offer some funding!) in addition to vacation, so I want to try to share this with you.

I’m glad to include links of everything I saw—a lot of the presentations were things the presenters have offered before, so information is easy to convey. I will be glad to send you links. But the experience isn’t about data. What it is about is the amazing sense of how God was working in the lives of the people I met and listened to. Almost every person I heard had a deep sense of Scripture. I did the math and I’ve preached at least 400 sermons. I know some things about the Bible. But the way that Mark Charles, a Navajo activist and educator, talked about how white settlers in the Americas lacked a “land covenant” with God to guide our relationship, or the way Bree Newsome talked about how Jesus worked for peace, not order, or how Tony Campolo talked about the love of Jesus moved in his heart to advocate for GLBT persons in the evangelical movement—literally, OMG.

I have heretical moments, but by and large I think my theology about Jesus is pretty sound. But that’s my theology. My passion for Jesus is more in sacrament and symbol and church and service. It’s more intellection and less clear than “Ok, Lord, I’ll climb that pole.” I’d be afraid to climb a flag pole just for the sake of the height, much less risking arrest and the legitimate possibility of being shot. But Bree Newsome pointed out that Jesus was mostly just in the Temple when he was knocking things over. He was out in the world doing his ministry where God called him to be.

So that’s my real invitation from Wild Goose Festival. Where am I muting the invitation of the Holy Spirit because of fear? Where am I unfree from a disordered attachment to comfort? In church, in my family, in my prayer? How often am I willing to do the hard work for genuine, holy, peace? To learn from marginalized voices, not because it’s my “duty,” but because Jesus is there. It’s very comfortable to say that “education” is the key to success and social mobility, and that’s often true. But where we need to lean harder on education is for people like me who don’t get arrested for failing to use a turn signal, to learn what we don’t know. As a person of privilege in this country I can be like a fish in water and not have to understand what water is. But that is not the way of Jesus.

A white anti-racist response has to come from humility. This country was founded on the theft of land and came to economic dominance through slavery. It is coming toward democracy, and is founded on some amazing ideals of freedom and equality that are coming toward being for all people. But those ideals aren’t a reality for all of its people. The inspiring part, though, is that if the truth really will set us free—and I think we have to believe it does—is that we are all on our way to the vineyard. Some will be on time, some will be late, and some will be really, really late. But as Episcopal priest Paul Fromberg said in his talk on “An apocalyptic of peace:” I don’t believe in progress. I believe in salvation.”

As a Christian I, too, believe in salvation.

Blessings,
Sara+