Blog

Are you Really Black?

2012-05-29T10:45:00Z

Two questions I entertain with frequency and frustration come from both external and internal sources.

Are you black? Am I a sellout?

The question of "are you black" is asked at least once a week from one of my students at the school I teach at. The predominant race of my students are black, and so I guess they are simply wondering how to categorize me-

Another African-American who at least has some sibilance of relatability
or one of those
any of those other ones
that cannot identify with my experience
If I am mixed
then so is the response
If I am white or Hispanic
then I am instantly dismissed
If I am black
then prove it
cause you sure don’t look like it

My history and my present are confounding even to me. I got questions like, “are you mixed?” all the time when growing up in LA. But never with as much baggage as it carries here in the South. Growing up in the 80s and early 90s, when the song was made famous, “It Never Rains In Southern California,” The sun beat down often, so 70 degree weather was a chilly day, and the sun rays were more likely to be shaded by smog than cloud cover, so, “I never knew I could get so light” was the first thing I said when I moved to Washington State with my mom.

I was one of those who grew up in the hood and hip-hop was my dialect, and sports was what kept me out of trouble- at least most of the time. Therefore my identity was never really questioned, the categorization less weighty, just more out of curiosity- “are you mixed with something else”, was more likely to be followed with a compliment than an insult. Unlike here in the South.

I was also committed to academics by the time I hit high school. I realized that after my mom went to war, literally, that maybe I should mess around and do my homework and classwork, and what was that, an A? I wanted my mom who was in the Middle East fighting a war that I not fully understood, to feel proud of her underachieving son. My vernacular and strut and track running remained constant, but then I found myself in upper-tracked classes, finding myself being the one of maybe two representing my race. Finding myself.

The white kids never asked me if I was really black. They just said stupid crap every now and then like, “you’re not like other black people.” I had a filthy mouth back then- “what the ---- did you just say?”

That inner rage and outward resistance found its home when I went to school at UC Berkeley.

Don’t question my race
or else I might evil stare you
mad doggin is what we called it
Make you feel like I was Ol Dog himself
what did you just say?
Reminding everyone around
even myself
you have no idea what I might do to you

In class I raised my hand as often as I could, but made sure my habitual slouch and slightly slurred speech could be seen and heard- screaming through subtlety, I’m not your regular black man! You have no idea what to make of me, I know don’t fit nicely in your boxes. All of my introductions started with, “I was raised in South Central Los Angeles” a location most people never heard of until defined by Boyz in the Hood. Thanks John Singleton.

I prided myself for being a man
an intellectual
who was also black
Don’t get it confused
I am black
and if you are afraid of me
so be it

Now I stare at the picture on my wall of my white wife, and remember my mixed children and the insanely stupid crap black and white people say. I don’t carry the rage like I used to, and my proving to others I’m really black days are supposed to be over. When I went to seminary I got confused with a friend who also attended, quite regularly. Joel Brown is at least a couple inches shorter, a few pounds heavier, a couple of shades darker,

We don’t look nothing alike
at all
What if I ran around this place talking about
hey Billy
to every white person I saw
Seriously

I dropped out for financial reasons, but have no intention going back to the place that I never had to be questioned if I’m black.

Am I still black? White wife, in a white denomination, middle class now, little, “you got beautiful children” running around. “You’re too light to be black”, and, “your wife is white”, and “your kids look white”, and a couple degrees to attempt to give my words validity. “You don’t talk white”. “You don’t act black”. Or the best one I heard since 2012- “after I got to know you I realized you were black as hell.”

Am I just fighting the South
or my own inner soul
that understands the inner-city
but doesn't fit the outer mold?

God is still freeing me still from my inner rage. His grace is proved every time restraint is given to my lips, and even my fist. Something I am still learning is how to be angry and not sin. How to forgive and ask for forgiveness. As a light-skinned black man living in the South with a white wife, the opportunities to experience this grace are numerous. But thankfully, He is patient with me, and so are my brothers and sisters of all races in Christ.

Hip-Hop vs. the Bible

2012-05-25T10:45:31Z

I have always been fortunate enough to have great images of manhood in my life. Men in my family and my church were always around to encouraged me, disciplined me, protected me. They taught me valuable lessons about how I should relate to other people and the world around me. They were not perfect, but they were always present and they were all God-fearing. I did not know it at the time, but these interactions were shaping my ideas about what it truly meant to be a man.

I moved to Washington D.C. after high school. I encountered a new reality there, one that did not line up with the world I came from. The moral teachings I learned in the church seemed too simplistic and out of date in this fast paced, sophisticated place. The hip hop music I had grown to love back home seemed more appropriate. It spoke to my ambition to achieve, my frustration with racism, the constant violence and the growing tension I felt from my female peers. I stopped going to church and began to replace the my country world view with a new one. Secular, academic, skeptical and fully informed by the ethic of hip hop, this worldview guided me throughout my young adulthood. It exposed the hypocrisy of a country that called me a law abiding citizen but looked away when police treated me and my friends like a criminals. It encouraged my ambition, showing me the basic unfairness of our economic system while teaching me how to exploit those same rules to get wealthy. Unaware of the spiritual cost, I indulged this worldview long enough to be considered a success in the very system I no longer had much respect for.

When I got married, it was like taking an x-ray of my soul. The hardness of heart, the cynical numbness to suffering, the lack of grace for others - it was all exposed inside me. My marriage would not last and I could not be the kind of man I was raised to be if I continued to live this way. My worldview provided a map to navigate this American system, but it had not led me to a path of inner peace. To have what Philippians 4:7 calls the ‘peace that goes beyond all understanding’, I would have to return to the life lessons of my childhood.

I had to go back to God.

But the path back was crooked and winding. I stopped, started, then stopped again, often times too proud to do spiritual work that felt unrewarding and weak. Submission to an unseen God - or God forbid, some crooked pastor reading from a thousand year old book? Forgiveness? Charity? Hip hop taught me these things would make me weak, an easy mark for everyone and everything that was ‘out to get me.’ I did not want to give it up because it had become my idol, the thing I went to for understanding, protection and solace. And though it kept me from physical harm and bought me economic prosperity, inside I was spiritually dead. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God offered the choice between blessing and curses, life and death. Like those people before me, I had a choice to make.

I chose life. That meant, when Hip Hop is at odds with the Bible, I choose the Bible. It is not always easy. I still feel vulnerable and weak and foolish. My faith still wavers and there are times when God is not only unseen but unfelt. But somehow, I am able to push on. I remember the way my life was and there is nothing back there but darkness. To be a proper man and fully embrace my God given humanity, I refuse to look back.

Instead, I choose to press on.

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Mike Sales is a member of Christ Central Church and is co-leader and host of the Hip-Hop Cypher Learning Community taking place May 30-Jun 27

Unmask Your Joy

2012-05-22T10:45:00Z

This Mother's Day I shared a bit of my story thanked the Lord for his faithfulness through my biological and spiritual mothers. Here are a few more thoughts.

In my hope and desire to become a mother, I entered into the lives of my families and friends to love on and befriend their children. Here I found a true and good measure of contentment and joy in "doing good". However, I did so with the main motive of being a better mother of my own children someday. I believed deeper, more lasting joy would be found somewhere down the not so distant road, once I had my own children. I loved the children in my life truly but from a safe distance. I believed real life, and love, was yet to come. I was (and sometimes still am), as Colin Hay sings, "waiting for my real life to begin".

Being asked to nanny for a three month old was the first time I felt a painful pang and asked myself, "Uh oh. Can I do this? Will it tear my heart out? How will I care for her without falling in love with her?" Really what I was wondering was: what will I do with the pain of saying goodbye at the end of my time with her? Which only begged me to face the deeper question: how am I going to live my life now, with my love and desire for children, in light of the fact I am scared and deeply saddened by the thought of never having my own.

Through several years of counsel and counseling, I've been learning to remove my masks. This has not come naturally or easily. But it has been a blessed journey. And so, I recognized this sorrow, nurtured by a deep longing, as another mask I was being asked to remove. I spent honest time, tears and trembling at its gaze, and came to these truths:

You can do this.

You care for her with your whole heart.

WHY ARE WE SO WHITE? Some Ways Forward: Part 1

2012-05-18T10:45:27Z

Prayer and Fasting:

I hate the pietistic sound of this but I really believe its true. Some demons can only be exorcised this way. Praying for people of other races and cultures to love our sinful denomination enough to lay down their lives for her. Praying for some to take on their own abuse for our beauty. Praying for an alien righteousness to invade our sinful ways.

Henry’s Baptism

2012-05-15T10:45:54Z

On the table sits a bowl of liquid grace
A little boy on stage held in warm embrace
Not dressed in the usual gown of pure white
But stripes picturing the Savior's epic fight

His father speaks a blessing and mom prays too
Both knowing Henry needs more than they can do
A palm-up hand splashes in the pool of mercy
Pearl-like beads drip down in colorless beauty

The drops cascade over that precious little head
His heart is washed and his one-year soul is fed

Water replaces the requirement of blood
Jesus, please make these drops be a mighty flood
Praise that he's sealed into the new covenant
God's love and delight now his from this moment

Trusting this day portends a long humble life
Of giving cups of water to those in strife
Taking up this bowl, it's current task complete
And bending low using it to wash others feet

----------------------------------------------------
Note: I was struck by John 13 reading it right after Henry's baptism (my grandson in Charleston), that Jesus ends his ministry with a baptism of sorts - baptizing the disciples dirty feet from a bowl of water, as only a servant would do. A bowl of water for baptism that marks the beginning of our relationship in the covenant community is the same symbol of Christ's call to continuous humble service within it.

Will You Be My Friend?

2012-05-11T10:45:05Z

Friend is an idol word and an idle word. It has come to define someone who knows and understands us deeply by their own free will and it has come to mean someone whom you click “Like” on your social media network. Friends are people you expect to see or hear from regularly or just read about regularly and never see. When it comes to friends, I echo rapper Whodini’s lyric sentiment- Friends/ How many of us have them?/Friends/Ones we can depend on/Friends/How many of us have them?/Friends/Before we go any further, lets be Friends.

The other day my wife Kellie and I were wondering, in this season of transition in our church and community, who will be our next friends? We mourned the loss of people who got our jokes and loved and even gloried with us in our tackiness. Where will we get the “come in your house and feel fine not knocking, saying a quick hi, go to the fridge, and get something to eat and drink out and then ask” kind of friends?

The Bible has relationships in that we can easily identify as friendships. Folks like Jonathan and David- “boyz” in conflict, got each other’s back kinda friends. Then there is Ruth and Naomi- I need a family member surrogate kind of friend. Paul and Silas- friends that worked together on a team kind of peer relationship friends. There was even Herod and Pilate- let’s get something done together kind of friends. But the one that stands out to me was Jesus and his disciples. Jesus says this in John 15:13-15:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (ESV)

A friend is not just someone who is with you all of your life, or you can always call on, they are the ones who will sacrifice for you while knowing what it will cost them to help and love you. They are those whom you will let into your inner and outer sufferings and joys and information. They are those whom you feel comfortable giving advice to and receiving counsel from.

But like Jesus is declaring here, friendship is more about befriending than getting a friend. If anyone needed a friend Jesus, heading to the cross, did. But he was not seeking friendship from the disciples, he was offering his and that made them friends. And when he did so, he was offering to die for and live for them but also to share his sufferings and life with and for them. He was coming to wrap himself, his time, his offerings, his person, his gifts around their needs, their cause, their brokenness. His friendship and type and degree of friendship was shaped by their needs and his concern for them. They became friends with Jesus, only because Jesus befriended them.

Friendship remains an out there, sometimes disappointing and unattainable reality if it is only about gaining a friend. Friendship is about being a friend around someone else’s cause or concern. And there is no timeline or depth meter to it, but only what is needed by them and given by you at that time(s) and place and level. The world needs friends. So be one. Befriend.

God and His Misfit Toys

2012-05-08T10:45:33Z

Do you remember the children’s Christmas TV special, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer? I still like to see it every winter. Do you remember the island of misfit toys? I remember as a boy how distressed I would feel seeing those toys with missing parts and parts forced on in the wrong places. I really hated to hear how the toys felt so unloved, unwanted and forgotten. I thought it was just so sad that these toys existed and nobody wanted them. They had no use in life. They were thrown-away toys.

Well, men in prison are kind of like those misfit toys. At first, you look at them and they look just like you and me, but then you get a little closer and you see that in many cases there are parts of them missing and fitting wrongly. But these are parts that make a healthy and whole human being. Or maybe there are parts or experiences attached to these men that should really not be attached to any human being. And very much like the misfit toys, these men are forgotten by the world and often even by their families. It feels like they are thrown away human beings. But how do you throw away a man? What man is not worthy, regardless of his past, to hear the message of the gospel?

This is what the Kairos Prison Ministry is all about. It is a ministry that brings the message of God’s love and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ to the incarnated and those who watch over them. The ministry has been around since the 70s and is in 31 states and 8 countries. We visit the Kershaw Correctional Institution in Kershaw, South Carolina which is 90 minutes from Christ Central Church.

The center of the ministry is what we call ‘a walk’, which is a four day weekend that takes place twice a year, and Walk #25 took place the third week of March this year. A walk consists of 36 inmates (selected by the prison staff), 40 volunteers, a series of 7 talks and testimonies delivered by the volunteers, dedicated time for small group discussions, chapel & prayer time, worship, and having lunch and dinner together on the prison grounds.

I have been a part of the Kairos Prison Ministry for five years. My role during walk #25 was that of a family table leader. There are six tables and the leader is responsible for facilitating the discussion at the table. I have to admit, my first time doing this was pretty intimidating. But now I really cherish that time. It is a rare opportunity to sit and be there for these men who will trust me with their thoughts, receiving them openly, offering words of encouragement. It is one of the most purposeful times I have experienced. It is a clear experience that has taught me why I am on this earth. It is a family making moment. Prior to the walks, we volunteers have spent five weekends going over training material and reinforcing the message among ourselves that our role at the tables is to listen, listen and love, love. This is so hard to do sometimes, but so very rewarding.

The ages of the men ranges from early 20s into the 70s. The needs are so great and their pain is deep and buried. Their environment is one where you can trust no one, and false gods, faiths, and beliefs run rampant and dark. There are so many things you want to say or preach, but it is really about listening and loving the men as they process what they hear in the talks. They begin to grow “new parts”, if you will, or they begin to see the parts of themselves that need removing. And where the change and light start forming right there in front of you…the Holy Spirit moves right in front of you. It is a precious, precious time and it is amazing when God allows you to bear witness to His work.

One of the acts of love we provide for the men is that of each volunteer, we write a letter to each of the 36 inmate participants. After five years, for most of the men, their families stop visiting them and stop any written correspondence. So to receive a bag of 36 written letters is a very special gift to an incarcerated man. On Walk #22, I was the leader of the weekend. The leader alone presents the bag of letters to each man while the rest of the volunteers are singing hymns softly in the next room. My! To see each man opening his letters with such care and reading the letters; it was too much to bear witness to. In some way, it was my own burning bush moment. I had to look away. It was as if God was pouring out His love at that moment and revealing His Son to them. All the words are from men who were misfit toys themselves but were made whole by a baby in manger many years ago. To say it’s a moving moment simply does not capture what is happening inside these men and how they are shaken by the entire weekend.

We also have a time of open microphone where the men can share their spiritual condition, how they see it was before and now after their time during the Kairos’ experience, and also what they are going to take with them going forward. I remember one man said once that if people on the outside knew what we’d found behind these walls, that they would be fighting to climb in to get what we got in here. What I believe is renewed or even found for the first time in the men’s hearts is that they feel loved again. They begin to feel hope that maybe God does have use for even someone like them.

One the intentions of the weekend is to try and get the men to realize they have built their own personal walls around themselves for different reasons, and that they need to take the step of joining a small group and have prayer-and-share times after the weekend is over. These are vital steps to begin their strong walk with God.

What is different about the Kairos’ ministry is that it is not a “one and done deal.” We have monthly reunions at the prison and visits of the men inside on the fourth Saturday of every month. We have about 150 – 200 men attend from each of the two dorms and the dorms alternate months. Kairos is Greek, it references God’s ‘Special Time.’ I invite you, one misfit toy to another, to come have some special time in a special place where God is making men feel whole again.

WHY ARE WE SO WHITE? The Problem: Part 5

2012-05-05T00:55:00Z

Just a quick note on self-understanding. Dissenting voices can easily be marginalized by rhetoric, theological high roads, policies, and frankly power. I remember one time a white seminary student asked why there was such thing as Black Theology. “Shouldn’t it just be Theology—objective and universal?” he asked. He asked as if Westminster Theology didn’t exist. Or as though there were no such thing as Scottish Covenanter Theology. Both are culturally born views of the Word and world. They can be better or worse—more or less closely representative of the Scriptures—but all theology is contextualized. Yes, even the Bible is too. But if you are a traditional Presbyterian in America, Westminster isn’t just a theology, it is theology. And frankly, that is a supremely dangerous and Anglo-centric place to live.

No Easy Answer

2012-05-01T10:45:29Z

“Daddy, is that a good dinosaur, or a bad dinosaur?” my son asked. And so it began. Whether it was a book on dinosaurs or trains, or even a commercial on television, we heard the inevitable, “Is that a good guy or a bad guy?”

How do you answer that? “Well son, technically trains are inanimate objects and are neither good nor bad.” Or “Well, that depends. If the T-Rex’s babies are hungry, then I suppose, he’s good, but if you’re the big slow herbivore you’d probably have a different opinion.” Or “Both. They’re good because God made them, but bad because they do bad things.”

While closest to the truth, that last option always left the kids unsatisfied. “Huh? How can it be both!?”

As Pastor Howard has preached the “God _____ America” sermon series over the last few weeks, I think the whole congregation has felt this same tension. Ideology has come face-to-face with theology. How can something that we’ve closely identified ourselves with (or despised) be both good and bad?

When it comes to nationalism or democracy or capitalism or civil rights, I sense we’ve all longed for the easy answers. Just affirm my beliefs, and let’s move on! We’ll tune in to the part of the sermon that make me the “good guy” and dismiss the rest. Voila, easy answer!

But, perhaps these ideologies that we hold so closely are a lot like us. They are beautiful, good, and right because they were invented by humans and reflect our status as image-bearers. But sadly, they reflect our brokenness and sinfulness as well. Like us, they are desperately in need of a Savior!

Amendment One To Being A Christian And The Long Way Home

2012-04-26T10:45:13Z

A member of my church asked me to make some sort of commentary on Amendment One which I immediately refused to do. The amendment, up for state vote on May 8th, 2012 reads this way as it seeks to define marriage and handle marriage rights in the state:

Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

Now, as far as political battles, I refuse to waste my call and time that should be given to proclaim the gospel to commit to making comments and opinions about something unsure. But, I was hooked when that member said that a believer from another church declared that if you were a Christian then you would vote for this amendment- now I am all in it. I am ready to rumble for whatever distorts the Gospels and the basic Christ Centered nature and reality of the gospel.

As far as righteousness before God, the gospel, the word of God teaches that we are declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Therefore, voting for or against this amendment can never determine our standing before God. When Jesus ascended into heaven bodily leaving behind his apostles, he had a group of zealots on his hands. They asked him this question when he departed in Acts chapter 1:

6 So when they [the disciples] had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.…

These disciples were asking their risen and glorified Lord when he was going to crush these political and religious institutions that don’t seem to follow him. He answers by declaring to them not right now, not the way and in the time you most easily see it. He wanted people to come to faith in Him from across social and political and ethnic lines by creating a community of witnesses of him. He wanted to create a third party if you will, made up of people submitted to Him who are from and living in the left and the right (left or right according to human assessment).

Why would Jesus not go ahead and take the moral, political hard line and charge forward in a righteous earthly victory right then? He had as much as anyone, being God and all. With the way we are tempted to judge we might have to assume that Jesus was not Christian enough to take the side of those who only imagined and saw one direct way home.

Jesus, over 2000 years later is still bringing his righteous kingdom to earth and holding off on much of the heavy hitting politically. We must understand that sometimes it is just as Christian to take the long way home, or a different way, pleasing God, that has no reflection on your standing or relationship with God. What if God wants the church and Christians to work through the issue as people who were married or “contracted” came into our state our neighborhoods, schools and communities where believers lived and loved them well. That sounds pretty Christian to me. What if this “lawn sign” war and subsequent vote is a wall that should not be built at this time? What if aligning Christianity with right wing politics in this way would caricature gospel carriers or believers and our Lord as enemies of human dignity.

Not that it is wrong to vote your conscious- please do! But maybe, just maybe God is calling for a number of Christians to not vote for this for another way home- the long way. Considering how long it has taken for Jesus to return, 2000 plus years, maybe the long way home is the more righteous- no that’s not fair either. Maybe at least as righteous a way to love our God and neighbors as Christ would have us.