United Church of Christ

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT RESIPISCENCE

February 28, 2021 Zoom Worship

WE GATHER TO WORSHIP GOD

GATHERING

One: As we begin, you are invited to light a candle. Let us pray. All: We light this candle to invite your Holy Spirit to move among and within us, inviting you to change our hearts.

PRELUDE By Your Cross Jacques Berthier DCC Chancel Choir

By your cross, and all the wounds you suffered, Grant us freedom in your love, in your love.

By your holy, life-giving resurrection, Grant us freedom in your love, in your love.

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Rev. Eric Sherlock

CALL TO WORSHIP the Conning Family

One: The Spirit of God moves among us, All: …binding us in covenant with faithful people of every time and place. One: The Spirit moves within us, All: …empowering us to proclaim the gospel to all people. One: The Spirit moves through us, All: …making us channels of God’s love. One: As we gather to worship, we open ourselves to the Spirit of the living God made known to us in Jesus Christ. All: So let it be. Source: transformingmission.org

PASSING THE PEACE the Conning Family One: Peace be with you. All: And also with you. One: Let us greet one another with waves and smiles and pass the peace of Christ using the chat feature.

OPENING HYMN Be Thou My Vision #451

PRAYER OF CONFESSION Rev. Todd Atkins-Whitley Jesus, wanderer in the wilderness, we confess that the distractions and busyness of our lives make it difficult to listen deeply to your voice. Transform our priorities so that we make space in our lives to be quiet and listen to you.

Jesus, seeker of the lost, we confess to becoming so shaped by the values of this age that your call on our lives is increasingly hard to hear. Transform our values so that they are shaped by your concern for the unloved and unlovely, and for the weak and powerless in our society.

Jesus, friend of the poor, we confess that too often any mission and outreach planning is weighed against economic viability. Transform our thinking so that we risk believing that all things are held together, not by the bottom financial line, but by you.

Jesus, bearer of reconciliation, we confess that all too often we close ourselves off to the realities of those outside our homes, our communities, our sanctuaries. Transform our hearts so that we are filled with the desire to expand whom we listen to, whose experience we value, and whom we enter into relationship with.

Jesus, source of our faith, we confess that we forget all too quickly the words we say, and pray, and sing, in our time of worship. Transform our lives so they remain connected to you at all times and in all places. Written by Moira Laidlaw (adapted)

TIME WITH CHILDREN Seiler Family

SCRIPTURE LESSON Mark 8:31–38 the Conning family

MODERN LESSON Kimi DeBarger-Gestring

If we are going to move this movement forward, we have to do two things: (1) We have to tell the truth about the way race operates and the function that racial categories and other categories have in our society. That...they’re deeply about entrenching power. [And] (2) We have to commit ourselves to undoing everything we’ve learned and to being courageous enough to write new rules that don’t leave anybody out and don’t leave people behind. That sometimes requires that we have to give up things that we’ve been told we are entitled to which are in fact everyone is entitled to. It may mean that sometimes we have to challenge our friends...family members...legislators, and say these rules are racist. Racism cannot be solved by people being nicer to each other….Racism, sexism, ableism—all the ways that we exclude and leave people behind—have to be addressed by changing the...'written and unwritten rules' that allow these kinds of dynamics to exist. – Alicia Garza from Conversation on Race with Rep. Barbara Lee, Mark DeSaulnier, and Jackie Speier, Facebook Live, September 15, 2020

HOMILY Change of Heart Pastor Todd

ANTHEM The Power of Your Love Geoff Bullock Gabrielle Goozée-Nichols, soprano

Lord I come to You Lord unveil my eyes Let my heart be changed, renewed Let me see You face to face Flowing from the grace The knowledge of Your love That I found in You. As You live in me. Lord I’ve come to know And Lord renew my mind The weaknesses I see in me As Your will unfolds in my life Will be stripped away In living every day By the power of Your love. by the power of Your love.

Hold me close Hold me close Let Your love surround me Let Your love surround me Bring me near Bring me near Draw me to Your side. Draw me to Your side. And as I wait And as I wait I’ll rise up like the eagle I’ll rise up like the eagle And I will soar with You And I will soar with You Your Spirit leads me on Your Spirit leads me on In the power of Your love. In the power of Your love.

TIME OF PRAYER Pastor Eric Sharing our Joys and Concerns (Email your requests to Pastor Eric or type them in the chat window.) All: Hear our prayer

Pastoral Prayer The Lord’s Prayer (using these words or the words most familiar to you) Our Loving God, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen

MISSION MOMENT First Church Berkeley

TIME OF GIVING the Conning family Invitation to Giving During this time of virtual worship, we invite you to give online via our web site and clicking “Donate” in the upper right of the screen. Doxology Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise God, all creatures here below; Praise God above, ye heavenly host; Creator, Christ and Holy Ghost. Amen Offertory Prayer

HOLY COMMUNION Pastor Eric

CLOSING HYMN Change our Hearts Rory Cooney

[Refrain] Change our hearts this time, 2 Now as we watch, you stretch out your hands Your Word says it can be. Offering abundances, fullness of joy Change our minds this time, Your milk and honey seem distant, unreal Your life could make us free When we have bread and water in our hands. We are the people your call set apart [Refrain] Lord, this time change our hearts.

1 Brought by your hand to the edge of our dreams 3 Show us the way that leads to your side One foot in paradise, one in the waste? Over the mountains and sands of the soul Drawn by your promises still we are lured Be for us manna, water from stone By the shadows and chains we leave behind. Light which says we never walk alone. [Refrain] [Refrain]

BENEDICTION Pastor Todd

POSTLUDE Lift Every Voice and Sing Lyrics by James Weldon Johnson Music by James Rosamond Johnson Vocalists Arranged by Ceylon Wise IV Alyson Bates, Aggastya Bajaj, Saiesha Bajaj, Karan Bajaj, Margaret Brooks, Michael Brooks, Mariah Chaffin, Maya Chaffin, Gavin Crozier, Dori Eggan, Abby Eggan, Robert Fischer, Carter Fleming, London Fleming, Ellen Griffin, Larry Griffin, Nora Lemmon, Aanya Narayana, Gabriella Randolph, Shine Wu Robison, Thai Sribanditmongkol, Noelle Shearer, Angela Whipple, Anye Whipple, Ashley Wise, Caleb Wise, C. Dexter Wise III, Ceylon Wise IV, Ceylon Wise V, Shirley Wise

Lift ev’ry voice and sing ‘Til earth and heaven ring Ring with the harmonies of Liberty Let our rejoicing rise High as the list’ning skies Let it resound loud as the rolling sea Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us Facing the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on ‘til victory is won

Stony the road we trod Bitter the chastening rod Felt in the days when hope unborn had died Yet with a steady beat Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered Out from the gloomy past ‘Til now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast

God of our weary years God of our silent tears Thou who has brought us thus far on the way Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light Keep us forever in the path, we pray Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee Shadowed beneath Thy hand May we forever stand True to our God True to our native land

EXTINGUISHING THE LIGHT

This Week’s Lenten Spiritual Practice

Week 2: Resipiscence Read Mark 8:31–38. Spiritual Practice: Wooden Heart

Hold the wooden heart in your hand as you pray each day. Invite the Holy to open your heart and mind, to transform you. On the heart, write the word or words given to you during this time of reflection. Mediate on the word or words each day.

Worship Notes

Framed by Black History, Black Futures month, worship in February will invite us to consider our role in building what Josiah Royce, and later Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called “beloved community”—a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love of one’s fellow human beings. Through poetry, readings, and music created by people of color and moments of prayer and reflection, we will have the opportunity to reflect on our role in being a part of the UCC mission and vision to be an anti-racist church that works toward a more just world for all people. Featured on our altar this week:

• Tamir Elijah Rice (2002–2014) was born to Samaria Rice and Leonard Warner on June 15, 2002, in Cleveland, Ohio. Tamir attended sixth grade at Marion-Seltzer Elementary School in Cleveland and was described as a pleasant young man who enjoyed art and playing sports. On November 22, 2014, Rice was walking in a park outside the Cudell Recreation Center, a place he frequented. Rice had a black Airsoft pellet gun, without the orange safety indicator usually found on the barrel, and was playing with it around the park. A 911 caller reported Rice’s activities but expressed uncertainty to the dispatcher about whether the gun was real. Two Cleveland police officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, both white, responded to the call but were not informed that the gun might be a fake. Security camera footage showed a police cruiser driven by the forty-six-year-old Garmback, who had been with the force since 2008, race into the frame and stop. Within two seconds, Loehmann had opened the passenger door and fired two shots at Rice, who was approximately ten feet away. Loehmann claimed he had told Rice to raise his hands three times as the car pulled up, but Rice failed to obey. This could not be verified independently since the footage did not have audio. Rice, who fell to the ground immediately after being shot, died the next day in the hospital. Officer Loehmann was a twenty-six-year-old rookie who had been on the job in Cleveland for eight months. Prior to this, he had been rejected for police jobs in several nearby towns and cities as well as the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department. Loehmann was hired by the police department in Independence, Ohio, but resigned in November 2012 after a poor performance review. • An image of an African-American man with his hands raised, a desperate bodily prayer to end the killing of unarmed Black people • A poster with the names of many African-American people—children, women, and men—who, though unarmed, were killed as a result of police brutality. • Hands with ashes: This image serves as a visual reminder that “we are from the dust, and to dust we shall return.”

• The Charleston Church Massacre took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, killed nine people including the senior pastor and South Carolina State Senator Clementa C. Pinkney during a prayer service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The shooting increased the awareness of racial violence and terrorism in the United States particularly against African Americans and led the South Carolina Assembly to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. The shooting occurred on Wednesday, June 17, 2015, around 9:05 p.m. at Emanuel AME during Bible study. According to accounts of survivors who witnessed the shooting, Roof was invited in for fellowship and sat next to Senator Pinkney. Taking his pistol from his fanny pack, he first shot twenty-six-year-old Tywanza Sanders. The other victims included eighty-seven-year-old Susie Jackson, the great aunt of Sanders, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman Singleton, Myra Thompson, and Clementa C. Pinckney. Roof fled the church. After an FBI-led national manhunt, he was captured the next morning at a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, 243 miles northwest of Charleston. Roof was arrested and returned to the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston, South Carolina. While at the jail, Roof’s cell-block neighbor was former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager who was charged with the murder of Walter Lamar Scott. Roof would later confess to the murders, explaining that he wanted the murders to start a race war. He additionally told investigators that he almost changed his mind about the shootings because church members had been very nice to him. On June 19, 2015, Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm. That same day, Roof appeared in Charleston County court via video conference at a bond hearing where the victim’s families spoke to Roof and forgave him for what he did. On June 25, 2015, two funerals were held for Ethel Lance and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton at the Emanuel AME Church. Clementa Pinckney’s funeral was held the next day at the basketball arena of the College of Charleston where President Barack Obama gave the eulogy. Funerals for the other victims, Tywanza Sanders, Susie Jackson, and Cynthia Graham Hurd, took place the following day. The last victim, Daniel Simmons, was buried on July 2, 2015. On July 7, 2015, Roof was indicted on nine murder charges along with other federal charges that included hate crime and civil rights violations charges. His trial began in Charleston on December 7, 2016 and ended on December 15. He was found guilty on thirty-three charges against him and was sentenced to death on January 10, 2017; however the sentence was later reduced to life in prison without parole. The Charleston Church Shooting prompted Black Lives Matter protests and calls for the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials across the United States including the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. (Source: blackpast.org) • Breonna Taylor, one of the most prominent victims of police violence and misconduct in 2020, was born on June 5, 1993 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was raised by her mother Tamika Palmer and her boyfriend Trory Herrod in Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor she attended local schools and graduated from Western High School, in Louisville in 2011. Taylor briefly attended the University of Kentucky, and then became an Emergency Medical Technician for the city of Louisville. She worked for Jewish East Medical Center as a full time Emergency Room Technician (ERT) and a Practicing Registered Nurse (PRN) for Norton Healthcare. Taylor desired to become a nurse, but her dreams were cut short when she was gunned down in her own home by police officers. A narcotics investigation regarding suspected drug dealer Jamarcus Glover, led detectives to Taylor’s residence in the South End. Glover was a previous acquaintance of Taylor and she was under suspicion for using her home to his receive mail, hide his drugs, and stash monies earned from his drug sales. Taylor, who was 26, at the time, lived in a Springfield Drive apartment with her 27-year-old boyfriend Kenneth Walker. Taylor and Walker were

asleep in bed, on the night of March 13, 2020, when they were awakened by a loud banging at the front door. Taylor called out, asking who was there, but heard no response. Walker, a licensed and registered gun owner, armed himself and headed towards the front door, when it suddenly came off its hinges. Under a “no-knock” search warrant, Louisville Metro Police Department Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Detective Brett Hankinson, and Officer Myles Cosgrove, all in plainclothes, stormed into the apartment. Taylor’s boyfriend Walker, thinking this was a home invasion robbery, fired one shot in self-defense. Sgt. Mattingly was hit in the leg, and in response, the other officers opened fire, releasing more than twenty rounds into the apartment. Taylor was shot eight times and collapsed in the hallway of her apartment. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Walker was arrested for attempted homicide but was later released before all charges were dropped. The subsequently-filed police report was nearly entirely blank or inaccurate. It stated Taylor had no injuries and that there was no forced entry. All three officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative reassignment pending the outcome of an investigation. On May 5, 2020, Taylor’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit and on May 20, investigation findings were given to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, while the FBI and US Attorney’s Office also conduct their own investigations. Police Chief Steve Conrad retired on May 21, amid criticism of his handling of Taylor’s case. After the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, global outrage sparked, and Taylor’s name was invoked by those who called for justice in protests around the world. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer indefinitely suspended the use of “no knock” warrants on May 29, and on June 10, the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department announced that it will require all sworn officers to wear body cameras. The officers involved have not been charged. (Source: blackpast.org) • An image of an African-American man wearing a mask that says “Racism is a Virus.” • Alicia Garza is an activist and writer who now lives in Oakland, California. Although she has organized around issues related to health, student services, and rights for domestic workers as well as violence against trans and gender nonconforming people of color, she is best known one of three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013. Garza was born in Los Angeles, California on January 4, 1981. She has a mixed-race background; her father is white and Jewish, while her mother is black. Garza describes herself as a queer social justice activist. In 2002, she graduated with a degree in anthropology and sociology at the University of California in San Diego. In 2008, she married her husband, Malachi Garza, who is a transgender male activist. In 2009, Garza served as the Executive Director for People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) for the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2011, Garza was also board chair for Right to the City Alliance (RTTC) in Oakland which fought gentrification and police brutality. On February 26, 2012 when unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by neighborhood security guard George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, Garza took her frustration and rage to Facebook and crafted a post and first used the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” In 2013, Garza along with Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors officially created the Black Lives Matter Movement. The movement works to end the violence towards African Americans particularly by the police and fights against the institutional issues of poverty and mass incarceration. In addition to the work she does with Black Lives Matter, Garza is currently the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) which strives to get better pay and working conditions for nannies and housekeepers. She also serves on the board of directors for the School of Liberation and Unity (SOUL) in Oakland. This school works to help underprivileged youth and people with low-income develop skills so they can improve their communities. Garza also on the board of directors of Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), another Oakland organization which helps black activists further develop their organizing skills. Garza has written for WarTimesmagazine and her articles and editorials have also been featured in The Guardian, The Nation, The Feminist Wire, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, and truthout.org. In 2015, Garza and the two other women who founded Black Lives Matter were runners-up for The Advocate’s Person of the Year award and in 2016, the trio was added to Fortune magazine’s 50 of the Most Influential World Leaders list. Other honors that Garza has received are recognition on the Root 100 list of African American Achievers between the ages of 25 and 45, the Local Hero award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Jeanne Gauna Communicate Justice Award from the Centre for Media Justice, and the Harvey Milk Democratic Club’s Bayard Rustin Community Activist Award (won twice). In 2017 Garza, Tometi, and Cullors were awarded the 2017 Sydney Peace Prize in Sydney, Australia. (Source: blackpast.org)

Lift Every Voice and Sing—often referred to as the Black national anthem – is a song written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) in 1900 and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1905. It was publicly performed first as a poem as part of a celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday by Johnson's brother John. In 1919, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

dubbed it “the Negro national hymn” for its power in voicing a cry for liberation and affirmation for African- American people. The song is a prayer of thanksgiving for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery evoking the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the “promised land.” Lift Every Voice and Sing is featured in 39 different Christian hymnals and is sung in churches across North America, including ours today. This morning’s version is an arrangement by Ceylon Wise IV produced for The Wise Channel, a YouTube channel that creates fun and educational videos for families to enjoy together. Watch their excellent video Why Do We Celebrate Black History Month.

Upcoming Gatherings

• Second Hour Coffee Chat, 11:00 a.m. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83804423154?pwd=ZUVLSTkrZXNTQitxNi9aSnduZDh6Zz09 Meeting ID: 838 0442 3154, Passcode: 311752 • Youth Group at 5:00pm (Zoom) • Pastor Eric’s Community Coffee Hours, Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3290290990?pwd=elA2ZytGckNXYzNtaGFpcFlLbXhaQT09 Meeting ID: 329 029 0990, Passcode: 989Meeting ID: 838 0442 3154, Passcode: 311752 • Worship at DCC, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. (Zoom) https://zoom.us/j/492975948?pwd=blJqZTNpNGo3S1o0YkNFM3FWQ1dIQT09 or by Zoom app: 492 975 948, password 322 or by phone: dial 669-900-6833 and enter 492 975 948 as the Meeting ID and 322 as the password.

Announcements To assist us in learning more about the contributions of African-American people to our communities, society, and culture as well as provide a way of deepening our journey through the season of Lent, DCC’s Anti-Racism Team has prepared a calendar of daily tasks, meditations, and learnings.

You can download and print the calendar here. [You can also share this post on Facebook.]

Click here to access a variety of Anti-Racism resources—including book lists for adults, children, and families; workshops; community events; podcasts; films; and more.

New Anti-Racism Resources

• UCC Webinar: “Church-based Reparations”—recorded February 23, 2021, 60 minutes There is growing call among many US religious groups to explore financial reparations as part of amends through financial investments and long-term programs benefiting African Americans. We will explore the theological grounding for reparations and will share learnings, mistakes, suggestions for next steps and practices for engaging the work. Join us for an ecumenical panel discussion of representatives of various predominantly white congregations and entities who have engaged in reparations.

• UCC Webinar: “Recovering Spiritual Practices of Enslaved Africans”—recorded February 25, 2021, 60 minutes. Join a conversation about African spiritual practices and the church. The spiritual practices of Africans were problematized in the enslavement and colonization of African people. Those brought into the Americas as enslaved people carried with them heritage, culture and spiritual practices that were interrupted with the introduction of Christianity and the vilification of African traditions. Is the “table” wide enough to make room for the ways in which African spiritualities are accompanying African descendant people on their spiritual journeys? How can we honor people and traditions shrouded by the imposition of racism and afrophobia?

Second Hour Coffee Chat Sunday at 11:00am, hosted by Bette Felton & Kristin Chambers The DCC Anti-Racism Team invites you all to join us during second hour (11am to 12pm) for a series of second hour events we are calling Coffee Chats. These will be informal spaces for dialogue with some members of the team where we welcome you to bring your questions and reflections on anti-racism work. We envision this to be a time to learn from each other, and if desired, brainstorm ways to find answers to the questions we bring forth to the discussion. Feel free to join whichever (or however many) session(s) you are available for. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83804423154?pwd=ZUVLSTkrZXNTQitxNi9aSnduZDh6Zz09 Meeting ID: 838 0442 3154, Passcode: 311752

Pastor Eric’s Community Coffee Hour You are invited to join Pastor Eric on Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. for an informal, open space gathering we are calling “Pastor’s Community Coffee Hours.” During this continued time of physical distancing, some of us may need a little extra dose of connection, conversation, and community. You are welcome to join Pastor Eric and other DCC members for casual conversation with your favorite cup of coffee or tea. Feel free to drop in for 5-minutes or spend the entire hour with us in this virtual space to talk about whatever is on your heart and/or mind. Zoom link is below: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3290290990?pwd=elA2ZytGckNXYzNtaGFpcFlLbXhaQT09 Meeting ID: 329 029 0990, Passcode: 989

Introducing the DCC Anti-Racism Learning Series! Our DCC Anti-Racism Learning Series will be bi-monthly events throughout 2021 in which we discuss and reflect on various topics delivered through a variety of media (articles/podcasts/videos/speakers) as a way of learning together about different elements of anti-racism. Each of these sessions will be stand alone, so you are welcome to join whichever and however many sessions you choose. Please join us on Sunday, March 21 from 11am to 12:30pm for our first session, which will include a quick orientation, then time for participants to help co-create our curriculum. During this session our goal is to hear from you about the media through which you learn best (audio, video, written) and specific topics you have wanted support in learning more about. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82940954112?pwd=eW5KMnEvYkpQMVRwNHE2a2JmYzdUUT09 Meeting ID: 829 4095 4112, Passcode: 115472

Tuesday, March 2—12:30pm Pacific UCC Webinar: “The State of Creation” What is necessary to halt the deleterious effects of climate change in the 21st century? Join Rev. Brooks Berndt, Minister for Environmental Justice, UCC and Jim Antal, author, public theologian, Special Advisor on Climate Justice to the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ. Rev. Antal will address: • The current state of climate change. • The impact of the roll-back of over 100 EPA regulations and disengagement from the Climate Accord: Needed reforms. • The role and responsibility of people of faith. • Actions we can engage both as individuals and as communities in 2021 Join us in a formal address from Rev. Antal as well as some dialogue moderated by Rev. Brooks Berndt about what we can do together to ensure God’s creation thrives in 2021 and beyond. Register here.

Friday March 5 at 3:30 pm Lenten Study on Reparations All are invited to join the folks or Arlington Community Church and Rev. Nate Klug for a Lenten Study on Reparations on March 5 at 3:30 pm. We'll be joined by Rev. Nate’s brother Dr. Sam Klug, a historian specializing in African- American history and thought. Sam will take us through some of the arguments around the idea of reparations for Black Americans, from James Forman’s 1969 manifesto at Riverside Church (https://www.trcnyc.org/blackmanifesto) to more current calls by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Keeanga-Yamhatta Taylor.

Here's the FB page for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/697997907548390

And here's the event on our church website: https://www.arlingtoncommunitychurchucc.org/events-at- acc/2021/3/05/reparations

Special Lenten Offering for Reparations

The Lenten Season is one of the most important seasons in the Christian faith. It is a period of 40 days, starting with Ash Wednesday and ending with Easter Sunday. During this period, Christians around the world participate in a season of penitence, prayers, fasting and self-denial, just as Jesus did when he spent 40 days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-25 and Luke 4:1-13). This year, Danville Congregational Church will be joining with other East Bay churches* in taking up an offering throughout Lent for a fund devoted to Black Homeownership Reparations. This idea arose in white-majority churches like ours, out of examination of our white privilege and complicity this past year. As you know, a lack of generational wealth hinders many Black communities. Through redlining, adverse mortgage terms, and loan application rejection, Black people in the East Bay have been disenfranchised from homeownership. The Black Homeownership Reparations Fund (BHRF) will be 100% devoted to supporting increased Black homeownership in the East Bay. A major barrier to homeownership, especially in the high-priced Bay Area, is lack of a down payment. This is especially true for Black homebuyers, who may have good incomes but no access to the additional capital they need for a down payment. The BHRF would: • Create a zero-percent-interest loan fund, to be paid back only when the home is refinanced or sold; • Be housed at the Richmond Community Foundation, as a donor-advised fund; • Work through local organizations to identify potential Black homebuyers who are on the journey to home ownership but who lack a down payment. Because the BHRF will be a loan fund, money from home refinance or sale will flow back into the fund, ready to assist other homebuyers. In addition, there may be other avenues by which we can support Black homeownership through our joint fund. Prayerfully, consider giving to this special Lenten joint offering of East Bay churches as an expression of penitence and a commitment to make reparations for the generations of harm done to our Black siblings by systemic racism. To make your offering online, go to the DCC Donations page, select Outreach Donations / Other, and type in “Lenten Offering” or “Reparations Fund”. Or you may write “Lenten Offering” or “Reparations Fund” on your check made out to DCC and mail it to DCC.

Faithfully, Doug Leich and Laura Beaver Outreach Commissioners

* Participating churches include Arlington Community Church, Kensington; First Congregational Church, Berkeley; First Congregational Church, Alameda; Good Table UCC; and Danville Congregational Church.

For more information, see the list of Frequently Asked Questions on the next page.

Special Lenten Offering for Black Homeownership Reparations Fund Frequently Asked Questions

“An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future. More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, June 2014

“The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly.” Isabel Wilkerson, Caste, 2020

What is the Black Homeownership Reparations Fund? The Black Homeownership Reparations Fund (BHRF) is a project launched by Arlington Community Church (UCC), to help repair a small portion of the financial damage of racism and white supremacist policies—in particular, the longstanding barriers to Black homeownership that have existed in our East Bay communities. Partner congregations include First Congregational Church, Berkeley; First Congregational Church, Alameda; Good Table UCC, El Cerrito; and DCC. Why choose Black homeownership as a reparations project? For most Americans, a home is their major source of wealth. A home appreciates over time and can be passed down to the next generation. But because of segregation, redlining, adverse (or nonexistent) mortgage terms, and loan application rejection, the Black community has been shut out from this major wealth-building tool. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of Black homeownership is 44 percent, the lowest of all groups. In contrast, 74 percent of white families in the U.S. own a home. Addressing Black homeownership is a way to make long-lasting, systemic change in how Black communities can build wealth and pass it along to their heirs. How does the fund assist potential Black homeowners? A major barrier to homeownership, especially in the high-priced Bay Area, is lack of a down payment. This is especially true for Black homebuyers, who may have good incomes but no access to the additional capital they need for a down payment. The BHRF would: • Create a zero-percent-interest loan fund, to be paid back only when the home is refinanced or sold; • Work through local organizations to identify potential Black homebuyers who are on the journey to home ownership but who lack a down payment. Because the BHRF is a loan fund, money from home refinance or sale flows back into the fund, ready to assist other homebuyers. In addition, there may be other avenues by which we can support Black homeownership through our fund. How will the BHRF operate? The BHRF will be housed at the Richmond Community Foundation through a donor-advised fund. This foundation has an outstanding track record for funding housing projects in the East Bay. For example, the foundation recently turned 20 abandoned, single-family homes into affordable housing, with more projects planned (Richmond has several hundred such homes). How can special Lenten offerings to the fund be made? To make your offering online, go to the DCC Donations page, select Outreach Donations / Other, and type in “Lenten Offering” or “Reparations Fund”. Or you may write “Lenten Offering” or “Reparations Fund” on your check made out to DCC and mail it to Danville Congregational Church, 989 San Ramon Valley Blvd., Danville, CA 94526. If you have questions or suggestions, please write to Doug Leich, Danville Congregational Church Outreach Co- Commissioner, at [email protected].

Ministers—The Entire Congregation

Church Staff The Rev. Eric Sherlock Mary-Marie Deauclaire Senior Pastor Handbell Director The Rev. Todd Atkins-Whitley Elizabeth Setlak-von Thury Associate Pastor Office Manager John Kendall Bailey Nicole Doyle Music Director Nursery Attendant

The DCC Prayer Team prays daily for those in need of prayers. If you would like to submit a prayer request for yourself or someone else, contact a pastor or send an email to [email protected]. All requests are kept confidential unless specified otherwise.

Sonna Dhamrait, Dayspring Preschool Director dayspringpreschool.org

Danville Congregational Church United Church of Christ 989 San Ramon Valley Blvd., Danville, CA 94526-4020 Phone: (925) 837-6944 danvillechurch.org