The mayoral forum, a poverty of trust, and becoming a new creation.

Last night, I sat across the street in a packed auditorium at Central Library as three candidates for mayor of St. Louis lay out their cases to the voters. Far more revealing about our common life was watching and listening not to the candidates ... but to the audience.

From the first opening statement to the last closing remark, the crowd reactions reflected the deep race and class divides in our city and the passions behind them. That of all the poverties we face in St. Louis -- and there are many -- the deepest is a poverty of trust in one another.

Probably the most iconic instance of this last night was when Jimmie Matthews-- who played the court jester role last night, providing comic relief while at the same time revealing deep truth about our common life -- was talking about how he was opposed to gun control. His reason? Because if "the mayor and his police force" have guns, then we need guns to protect ourselves.

And African-American heads around the room nodded in assent.

It is a poverty of trust when a large part of a community looks at people sworn "to protect and to serve" as an enemy to be defended against.

When there is a poverty of trust, it usually is with reason, and those reasons often have deep roots. And that certainly is the case here. It almost doesn't matter whether today's police are trustworthy or not ... the perception is the reality. And it's not just limited to the police. It's about economic development and education and much, much more. When the motive behind every action is assumed to be nefarious, all the flowery langauge about having to "become one city" (and we heard a lot of that last night) means absolutely nothing.

I left last night with four thoughts about healing this poverty of trust:

1) It takes both sides listening deeply. Trust is rebuilt when both (or all) sides commit to setting aside their gut reactions and prejudices and listening deeply to the experience of the other. This is incredibly hard work, and there are no short cuts. It has taken us generations to get us to where we are in this city and nation, and we are not going to snap our fingers and turn into all the Whos down in Whoville joining hands on Christmas morning. We have to be willing to listen deeply to one another and truly hear very different and even contrary worldviews to our own. We have to allow for our own deeply held worldviews to be challenged. We have to be willing to lay our lives down and be vulnerable with one another.

2) It takes more than words - Words are important, but trust is rebuilt by word and action. There are serious inequalities in St. Louis ... and many if not most are along racial lines. It is up with those of us who have power and privilege to take the lead not only in word but in action in giving power away in partnering across race and class lines for the elimination of inequities of economic opportunity, education and public safety.

3) Mayors are not magicians. One thing I can tell you about this election, and that is if we think whom we vote for is going to radically change things, we are sadly mistaken. From what I know about Mayor Slay and President Reed, they are both fine men who care deeply about our city -- I'm not just saying that to be politic, I am genuinely impressed by both of them. But when you are trying to change a system, swapping out the leader is actually one of the least effective ways to do it. Unfortunately, the race question that was asked last night was the wrong question. The candidates were asked "What will YOU do to heal the racial divides in our city?" The better question would have been "What can WE as citizens do to heal those racial divides?" Our best leaders don't have magic policies that change everything. Our best leaders call us to look at ourselves and to realize we have the power to come together for the common good. Which leads us to...

4) It's up to us - If trust is to be rebuilt in St. Louis, it is up to us. But that's good news for us as Christians and particularly for us as a Cathedral, because we are uniquely equipped for the task. In  2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes:

"From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even tough we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."

Right now, we have a poverty of trust. It is one that is well-earned over generations. We are not to be faulted for not trusting ... when you have been given reason over and over again not to trust, it is only human. But we are called beyond that. We are called not to look at each other from that human point of view, but to see one another as and to become a new creation in Christ ... because in Christ we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

What it means to be given the ministry of reconciliation in Christ is that we do what Christ did ... lay our lives down for love of the world, even for love of those who would oppose and persecute us, even love of those whom we bear the weight of us having persecuted. Being "reconcilers in Christ" means we listen deeply to one another, we allow ourselves to be convicted by one another, we confess our sins and accept God's forgiveness and each others'. We do the hard work with no short cuts of learning to live together ... not expecting uniformity or even unity, but striving for mutual love and respect and trust. 

As a Cathedral community, we have named "diversity" as one of our core values, and we were right to do so ... but I'm not sure there is a more challenging value we could have named. Because diversity in Christ is not just tolerant coexistence, it is deep vulnerability. Diversity in Christ does not happen overnight but takes years ... and takes patience ... and takes trusting first in the deep grace of God.

This past Sunday, the Rev. Starsky Wilson passionately proclaimed to us that "it's about time" for God's reconciling love to happen. This weekend, Debbie Nelson Linck will unveil her amazing photo exhibition and we'll hear Wiley Price talk about his work chronicling the last 30 years of this divided city. We'll continue our work of sharing our stories and listening deeply to one another. We'll continue, in our incredibly imperfect ways, of trying to see one another from a different point of view. 

We'll continue, in our own way, to heal the poverty of trust in our own lives ... and be equipped for God to send us out into our city to do the same.