This morning, we are going to be thinking about reparations: what they are, the history of conversations around reparations, and ways that the biblical story, and theology that has been created since, may support reparations. Clearly, I will be making an argument for them; however, this does not mean that we as a congregation must pursue them. I am making an argument so that we have pieces of history and theology to work with in future discussions about reparations. As we discussed in earlier parts of the service, doing reparations is tricky, and we will have to continue to do a lot of learning as we go, knowing we will mess up along the way.

In Menno Simons’ essay, “Foundation of Christian Doctrine,” Simons appeals to the authorities who perpetrated the violence of Christendom and the horrors of Anabaptist martyrdom. Menno invites the authorities to, “anoint their eyes with salve so they might see and understand what the right way, the truth, and the life are.”

In his essay “Confession: Menno’s Penitential Piety and the Foundation of Jesus Christ,” Anabaptist scholar Gerald Mast writes, “Like Saint Paul, who discovered that in his blind zeal he was persecuting Jesus Christ, the authorities (whom Menno was writing to) were invited to humble themselves and repent of their transgressions.”

Menno invited the authorities to repent for their transgressions.

Mast writes, “With this opening appeal to authorities and all people, Menno previews the basic grammar of salvation:
By God’s grace, we awaken from the sleep of sin and death,
We repent of our sins and amend our lives.
Believing in the gospel, we confess our faith in Jesus Christ and bear the fruit of this faith.”

We go from God’s grace to an act of penitence, then to faith.

Mast points out that, unlike Menno’s contemporary Martin Luther, who argues penitence is an outcome of faith, Menno believes active repentance is the basis for faith. He believes that when we are penitent, when we recognize the harms that we have committed or been a part of, and act to amend them, we demonstrate love of one’s neighbor in our actions—actions that are inspired by the life of Christ. Only through penitence can we have faith.

It’s been my experience that the word “repent” feels a bit icky. Unfortunately, my first thoughts are about the dangers of “sin talk” and how repentance has historically focused on the “actions of persons and groups who have the least social power, and therefore are especially vulnerable to social and economic injustice,” as Stephen Ray Jr. writes in his book, “Do No Harm, Social Sin and Christian Responsibility.” The words “sin” and “repentance” have been abused, and so it feels tricky to figure out their value in our tradition without traumatizing many of us who have shifted away from this kind of talk.

But repentance and sin feel a little different when considering social issues rather than being told you are personally and inherently a dirty, rotten sinner.

I’ve gotten pretty theoretical here, so I would like to use the story of Zacchaeus, which we heard already today, to show us an example of Zacchaeus’ penitence and the action that brings about his faith.

We all know the story of Zacchaeus: a wealthy tax collector who wanted to see Jesus. Because he couldn’t see over the crowds, Zacchaeus climbed up a tree so he could get a glimpse of Jesus walking through. Jesus sees him up in the tree and calls him by name! “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” This is a moment of God’s grace and an invitation for Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus gets down from the tree and welcomes Jesus.

People began to mutter about Jesus: “He’s going to hang out with a tax collector who has cheated people???”

In some way, Jesus’ appearance to Zacchaeus makes him feel convicted. So penitent Zacchaeus confesses: “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Zacchaeus didn’t say any magic words. He didn’t make any intellectual claims. He is not even making a confession of faith. Zacchaeus is penitent. He names how he has done harm to people, and in this penitential spirit, says that he will return the money that he has unjustly taken from people. He even goes further—giving back half his possessions to the poor and paying back four times the amount that he cheated from people.

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Zacchaeus is not messing around. He repents, and for that, Jesus says salvation has come to this house.

I remember in 2015 reading Black Liberation Theologian James Cone’s book, Black Theology and Black Power, after hearing about Cone at an MCUSA convention. In this book, Cone has strong words for white congregations.

Cone argues that the white church has historically been complicit in the oppression of black people by its silence toward and lack of action against systemic racism. He contends that the white church often prioritizes maintaining the status quo over challenging social injustices, thereby perpetuating inequality. Cone urges the white church to actively engage in the fight for justice and align itself with the marginalized, reflecting the life and work of Jesus.

I was 24 years old and had done a great deal of questioning and interrogating my faith, but this really shook me to my core. Had the tradition I grew up in been silent about issues of systemic racism? Had my church been too focused on maintaining the status quo over challenging injustice? Well, I certainly never heard this type of critique coming from inside my church.

I felt convicted and felt like there was work to be done in confessing our complicity in systemic racism as a faith tradition.

When I try to empathize with the experience of Zacchaeus, I wonder if he felt similarly. Did Zacchaeus, like me, feel convicted for the harm that other people experienced from his practices?

When one is penitent, the only direction one can go is toward creating right relationships.

This brings us to reparations.

In 1969, Jim Forman interrupted New York City’s Riverside Church to demand reparations from white churches to make up for the injustices African Americans have suffered. Forman criticized Riverside’s relationship with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., “charging that Rockefeller used ‘money stolen from the poor to build this great cathedral… and whose money is still exploiting people of color all around the world.’”

In 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates published in The Atlantic his essay, “The Case for Reparations.” Coates’ essay was an argument for reparations for Black Americans for the centuries of racial injustice, the exploitation of slavery, the discrimination that followed in the Jim Crow era, and the policies that have followed since. Coates argues that there are significant economic consequences for these policies that impoverished black communities and enriched white communities, and that these disparities have been perpetuated over generations.

Coates believes that there is a moral obligation for reparations for African Americans, and compares it to the reparations that were given in other instances, like Holocaust survivors and Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Coates’ article is a call to action on a national scale and sparked conversation about racial injustice and the feasibility of reparations in America.

But this isn’t the first time reparations have been talked about in our country. During the Reconstruction era that followed the emancipation of Black slaves in the United States, Black Americans were promised 40 acres and a mule—a chance at getting on one’s feet and receiving property. However, federal and state policy began emphasizing wage labor, not land ownership, and so almost all of the land reallocated toward Black Americans was restored to white owners.

Over the next decades, discrimination would continue—the government refused to provide Black veterans with the GI Bill following World War II. Housing discrimination was done via redlining, where Black Americans were not allowed to purchase housing in certain neighborhoods and were left in areas near industrial plants where toxic fumes and dirty water existed. It has been said that the easiest way to find where Black neighborhoods are today is by looking for industrial plants on maps.

Reagan’s war on drugs placed significantly more Black Americans in prison for crack, even though their white counterparts were using cocaine just as much. And Clinton’s Crime Bill in the 90s predominantly placed people of color in prison. These effects we still feel today, as 78% of people with life in prison are not white.

If you want to explore any of these ideas, let me know; there are plenty of books and documentaries outlining these injustices.

A quick thought for many of us can be, “Well, my ancestors didn’t have slaves, I never mistreated a Black person, and I never pushed Native Americans off the land—so why should I repay in reparations?”

This is all well and true for many of us.

However, we must consider the systemic issues that we are complicit in. While Black Americans were being discriminated against through policy, many white Americans were reaping the financial benefits.

As someone once said, “We didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree; centuries of policy and discrimination got us to where we are today.”

In recent years, reparations have been part of the conversation for many churches across the United States, and specifically in our Central District Conference, where multiple churches have engaged in reparative acts.

As a predominantly white church community, we have to consider our part in this. We have to consider how we have benefited, even if we were well-meaning, from policies that discriminated against Black Americans. We have to ask hard questions. We have to confess how we are a part of the society that perpetuated discrimination and question the idea that we are a Mennonite community in a bubble, far from that colonizing violence.

This last winter, the treasury team provided a proposal to the leadership circle of what to do with the surplus of funds from last year. Then, we as a congregation, voted in favor of a plan that the treasury team proposed. One of those items was providing $4,500 in funds for a reparative act. However, nothing has been done with this money because we need to explore as a congregation a bit more of what it means to return money to currently and historically exploited groups.

This is not the first time that our congregation has sought to return money through reparative acts. Before I was part of this church, FMC gave money to a fellow CDC congregation, Shalom Mennonite, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

What we know from Shalom Mennonite is that they had a team of folks return the funds back to Black and Indigenous-led organizations, but little else, because in returning funds to exploited peoples, part of the work of communities who have benefited from colonization is learning to let go of how such funds are used.

It’s a bit different than donating money, which is an act of charity. In returning funds, we are seeking justice for what has been taken from colonized peoples, and so we must release control from overseeing how the funds are used. If someone stole money from you and then returned it demanding reports and stipulations on how the funds were used, that would not be just.

Reparations are a form of penitence. By making payments as a community back to communities who have been historically harmed, we are naming the violence that has been done to others, and how we are complicit in maintaining that violence.

In penitence and taking action, we find the starting place for faith.

It has been my experience, when I was a member of Columbus Mennonite, that this act of penitence through reparative acts brought faith. It was such a joyful feeling to return money as a community back to communities that have suffered generations of greed.

That joyful feeling is faith in action. It is a gift that comes from penitence.

It was also a gift to do it together as a community. I imagine it would feel much more difficult to return funds as an individual. But as a community, we can joyfully pay together.

It is the feeling that Zacchaeus felt, as the scriptures say, as Zacchaeus welcomed Jesus gladly to his house, after naming the harm and returning money.

As a community, can we continue to reflect on our participation in harming others? Can we be penitent, as Zacchaeus showed us, and Menno calls us to? Can we explore steps in making just actions that will repair harm?

By God’s grace, may our penitence and action bring us the gift of faith.