Burning Buildings and Chasing Clarity
When the buildings started burning I was glued to my television. Memories started invading my consciousness. “The Target on Lake Street is being looted.” The one by Hiawatha? My wife and my first apartment when we were newlyweds was on 35th and Lake. “Stores in the Midway are burning.” The ones right by Zion and Central Mission and my office? Where I pastored for 8 years? Lord, please protect the neighborhood.
The next morning, I woke with the urge to go and walk the neighborhood, to be present to the devastation, and to pray. So, I went early, before traffic was driving around. The firetrucks were still hosing down our pharmacy and there was still water gushing out of the Goodwill store. I talked with the owner of an Ethiopian restaurant that was completely lost. I was given the opportunity to pray and grieve alongside him and his family. I was able to converse with the owners of the coffee shop that was unharmed and had taken the posture of hospitality in the neighborhood. I was able to see the presence of Christ working in the midst of relationships and the rubble.
After walking through the Midway my emotions were mixed up. I was sad. I was angry. I wanted to do something to fix the situation. And there is a lot to be fixed. Many of our churches and ministries jumped to the task of helping with immediate needs. Rick Wallace has amazing stories to tell about how Envision Twin Cities was able to help refugee business owners in their time of need. I was blessed to be able to serve alongside RiverLife Church at an Eastside St. Paul Peace Gathering. I know of many other churches that have helped provide finances and food to the hurting neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
As the weekend progressed and I had time to process with my church community via a Zoom prayer vigil I came to a difficult realization. It was all too easy for me to move on from wrestling with how to understand complex layers of race in America that culminated with the protests and riots in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Instead, I found myself taking on a posture of helping those affected by looting and rioting. I had become more concerned with the effects that had happened instead of the causes that brought us to this point. As I have considered what needs to happen in our city, the tasks seem to begin with the easiest and then get progressively more difficult:
Provide tangibly for the immediate needs of the community affected – There are legitimate food deserts in Minneapolis and people need to have access to food and medicine.
Rebuild the communities affected – This gets progressively more difficult, as this will take time and energy and money. Many of the locally owned businesses affected did not have insurance that would cover this type of loss. It will take a massive scale of rebuilding and re-opening to rebound from the losses.
Dig down deep to heal the divide that these events have laid bare before us – This is the hardest work of all and I would say the most important for those of us who believe that we serve a God that desires to reconcile all things to Himself and reconcile us to one another. This is going to take listening to people I haven’t always listened to and being led by people that I haven’t allowed to lead me before. This is the work that is necessary in order to really deal with the causes of what has happened here. This is the work that will bring us to the shalom that God desires for us.
There have been two settings where I was able to have the most clarity of purpose in the wake of all that has happened in our city. The first was at the prayer meeting I mentioned above. For me as a white male, it was important to grieve alongside people of color and be led into the grief they are feeling. It absolutely broke me. The second was at a silent clergy march in St. Paul organized by black clergy in the city. 7 of us from C&MA churches were honored to march behind these clergy members to grieve and dream about a new way forward. These spaces of being led by people of color have become something I look for expectantly as I realize my perspective is so limited and I have much to learn.
I don’t know what the invitation for you has been in these days as we have seen all of these events unfold. My challenge for you is this: would you consider the work that has to be done on the third point above as the primary work for you as a pastor and leader? It is so easy to jump into helping tangibly, and we need to do that, but we cannot and should not do that at the expense of listening and learning how we got to this point in the first place so that we can truly stand together in reconciled relationship. If you don’t have places in your area where you can be led by people of color, may I submit that the C&MA has produced many resources that we sent out to you in an email that are a powerful place to start to submit ourselves to other voices? May God bless you as you do the hard work, and may a fresh harvest be born out of all of those who are willing to embrace God’s reconciling work. May we run so long and hard after God’s dream of reconciliation that we run this marathon until we lose our breath.
Kyle Magstadt
Associate Superintendent for Church Multiplication
North Central District of The C&MA