Your Kingdom Come: Refugees and Racism
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
When I saw the video of the murder of George Floyd, I was stunned.
I felt intense grief, anger, and even some despair.
Emotions are good. All of them. They are data, not destiny. They are momentary reactions to what is before us. We can be curious about them, because they tell us something about ourselves.
There are times when it is good, and holy, to be angry or to be in grief. Jesus felt these feelings.
But then I thought of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). These are evidence of the Holy Spirit, and of God’s reign.
Even as I was feeling grief and anger, I sensed that these would not be the emotions that would sustain me in a lifetime of reign-of-God-seeking and peace-on-earth-making. When momentary reactions calcify into ongoing attitudes, we may be in danger of being energized from things that are not of the Spirit.
RHPNA Responds
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash. Mural by Benjamin Cahoon, Sierra Ratcliff, Jared Mar and Annabelle Wombacher.
We are a network that stands with, walks beside, and advocates for displaced people. We do this in a North American space that has its own legacy of ethnocentric forcible displacements. Many refugees are people of colour. Their stories of migration are shaped primarily by oppression in their home country, yet they may also experience racism in their new country.
Let’s be clear: systemic racism is wrong. God’s reign welcomes and celebrates the diversity that is brought into the Kingdom by many races and cultures (Revelation 21:24-26). To pray “Your Kingdom come” is to be anti-racism. Given that God’s Kingdom welcomes all races, and is therefore anti-racism, as followers of Jesus we are to live lives that embody and ‘make visible’ this reality.
How might we cultivate a positive vision – a picture of this already-and-future Kingdom – of what God is doing and creating? How might this be the primary energy that sustains us, so that we are not co-opted into rigid dialogues that are unnecessarily confrontational?
One thing that may help us is to listen to the real stories of real people. There are stories of grace and hope that are present in the stories of pain and oppression. The average human being is more complex than the average news headline.
What are the stories present in the RHPNA that may help us navigate the current North American conversation around racism and injustice? What might we learn from the complex interweaving of life-narratives that are present in those around us?
Over the new few months we want to share some of these stories with one another. Perhaps, because of our distinctive location as those who are alongside the displaced, we might offer a different voice into our societies’ current conversation around racism and injustice. Perhaps the prayer “Your Kingdom come” has hints of an answer in the people around us. Let’s find out.
Sam currently serves as Executive Director of the Christie Refugee Welcome Centre in Toronto. Christie was started by World Vision and is now a standalone Christian non-profit serving as a City of Toronto shelter to house claimant refugee families.
Sam received his Master of Divinity degree in 1989 from Regent College and served as Associate Pastor at a church plant in Vancouver before becoming Pastor of Worship & Outreach in Saskatoon and Lead Pastor in New Westminster, BC. From 2010-2015 Sam was Executive Director of Canadian Baptist Ministries, which is the national and global mission arm of 1,000 Canadian Baptist churches.
His interests range from how the gospel interacts with culture, to how economic and social systems nourish abundant human living, to finding the best coffee grinder. He has served on the RHPNA leadership team since 2019.