Sermon delivered at the UU Church of San Mateo on November 13, 2016.
Good morning, dear friends. I would like to acknowledge the grieving happening right now and the emotional rollercoaster of the elections. Another polarizing blow to this country.
Yesterday, one of my schoolmates revealed to me that she voted for Trump. She said it hadn’t been easy for her to see so much grieving in her church after the elections. She went to a mostly Black church and she is white. And my heart went out to her especially when she said, “People are already tired of white bashing.”
My fiance had just moved here to San Mateo. Janice, whose father lives in San Mateo and who over the last 10 years had petitioned for her to move here as legal immigrant, finally arrived last month.
Today we live in fear of walking the streets alone, even in Berkeley, where we are often together. In just 5 days after the elections, there have been hundreds of violence against people of color in the United States.
Is it too late to dream of Abraham’s Tent, a tent in the desert that welcomed strangers from different lands, where Abraham treated them like royalty? Abraham is Khalil-Allah or Friend of God in both Jewish and Islamic traditions. A person who converses with his guests, treating them like they were all messengers of God, such that God would feel welcome there.
The Philippines has a proud history of taking in refugees. You probably know the Schindler’s List, but have you heard of Quezon’s List? Our president then Manuel L. Quezon saved 1,200 jewish refugees from the holocaust. Also, the Philippines had taken in Chinese people fleeing the Japanese Imperial Forces during the 1930s. A few years later, about 8,000 “White Russians” fleeing the Bolshevik revolution were welcomed in our country as they settled in Samar. From 1975 to 1982, in only 7 years, about 400,000, Cambodians and Vietnamese fleeing the Vietnam war had settled in our lands. Only 2 years ago, Rohingya Muslims who had risked death and starvation on overloaded boat on the seas of Southeast Asia had fled what they called Buddhist persecution in Burma and after days of discussion among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with no country willing to take them, not even our more affluent neighbors, the Philippines decided to take all 6,000 Rohingya Muslims from Burma.
There are about 200,000 Americans living in the United States, either permanently or as transients. As for US military personnel more are sent to the Philippines than had been to Iraq. The Philippines is a haven for the immigrant of any color, rich or poor. One scientist said there is more biodiversity in our Mount Makiling than the whole of the United States. In gold, nickel, and platinum, our density is more remarkable than most countries.
This is why I don’t understand white privilege.
Abraham’s Tent... The Quran refers to Islam as “the Religion of Abraham” consistently. And according to oral tradition, God made Abraham the “The Father of All Nations.” What strikes me is that God didn’t say Father of One Nation. Abraham would be a Father of All Nations.
Is it too naïve to think of this possibility in America? That it should be a land of many nations?
Two Wednesdays ago, I was at Standing Rock with 500 clergy of different faiths responding to a distress call by the Sioux Nation. As a response to the distress call, many of the Native American nations have written off hundreds of years of grudges and differences to support the Sioux Nation under siege in their non-violent struggle to uphold their sovereignty.
I don’t think there’s a government that can stop people from sharing with each other, loving each other, and caring for one another. Like distorting institutional racism with cultural sensitivity, distorting structural violence with a culture of welcoming, acceptance, and equanimity.
23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:23-28)
The call today is to let our communities reflect not just authenticity but ethnicity. When we were at Standing Rock, a Native American woman taught me something when she addressed the clergy about her culture’s way of asking first, “Where do you come from? Tell us about yourself, what brings you here, what is your purpose. No, tell us, where do you really come from?” If these big rich companies were so privileged, why do they come after what we have?
It made me realize we do all belong to tribes or nations. Even white people who would have us believe that only people of color have races. As if race is a stigma.
Our conversations need to be more transparent with our personal interests. People of all races are starving on the streets, getting displaced from work. I used to work for Accenture, an global company with top clients like Microsoft and Google. Members of my team used to come to the United States to tell people they are being downsized and outsourced. I had left Accenture 2 years ago. I really do not understand what people call white privilege. I don’t.
I think there is grieving that needs to happen from people who never knew they had a race to think about. Our conversations need to come alive with each individual’s real stories, where they come from, their desires, and their needs. Even white people have races and they have needs.
And we have within us and among us the power of conversation to take back the power of the people and to give back to one another the power to know each other again.
A verse from Tao Te Ching goes:
He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws.
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.
How do we bring life to our tent today? How do we offer each other no place for death to enter? How do our conversations go?
The Native American people at Standing Rock were so hospitable. Anyone is welcome. No one shall die in their midst for being a stranger.
Discrimination against ethnicities is not common in my country. Yet, we are not ashamed of our hardships to fit in our narrative of generosity. One Filipino of every 2 families go abroad to chase the petrodollar because we struggle as well with inequalities.
The Philippines has lent the International Monetary Fund $1 Billion to boost its crisis fund in 2012 to help stabilize the global economy after the 2008 crisis and the euro zone’s debt crisis, both crises had little effect on our country, despite claims that the US economy shakes the world. Tell me again about white privilege when the US has the biggest debt in the world.
I had just newly arrived here when I had gotten offers to go to the Burning Man. But I had heard that it is a festival of white hetero cis men privileging women with tight bodies. That is how I think of privilege. It comes from a bad place. I wouldn’t throw that word around too much in conversation with many races.
Forbes magazine says there are now 18 times as many renouncers of US citizenship as 2008, even when the US hiked the tax for renunciation by 422%.
I pray for you, this country and its wars with other nations. And I pray for deep listening and patience. We all need not just to love one another but to truly start liking each other if we are to survive as a human race. We need to feed our conversations with new and better sensibilities and approach each other with some humility and forbearance.
Perhaps Abraham needs to let go of owning the tent. It needs to be a tent where visitors come and leave stuff for the next visitor. Abraham needs to delegate and trust in co-ownership. After all, Abraham by this time had already given birth to nations, not just one.
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