August 5, 2020
Donald Ng
My grandfather first came to America in 1910 as a migrant worker so that he can support his family in China. My father came in 1930 to continue the hand-washed laundry and when WWII broke out, he enlisted in the US Army and served in Germany. After the war and assisted by First Baptist of Boston, he brought my mother to America in 1947. I was born in the shadows of Fenway Park and lived in Roxbury. My neighborhood soon became the Black community. As a child when the school system wanted more whites in an increasingly Black school, I was labeled as white. When my teacher saw my name on one of those little classroom seating charts, “NG, D”, he said “No good desk!” My brothers and I were called “Orientals” like we were trinkets in a souvenir shop. The question that almost every Asian American has been asked is, “Where are you from?” Being born and brought up in Boston were never sufficient answers because in the eyes of most white people, Asians and Asian Americans are eternal foreigners in a strange land.
As a past ABC president, I confess I have not done enough fighting for racial justice, equality, human rights and peace in the world where there is too much injustice. I believe we still have much to do.
Let us pray.
God of Creation, in your own nature of expansive variety and unique distinctiveness, you brought this world into existence to proclaim the glory of creation’s beauty and the inter-relatedness of life. Your design is for all of us—the birds of the air, the fish in the sea, the animals on the land, and especially the human beings who share your own image, made just a little lower than the angels to live in harmony with each other. In your salvation acts of grace and mercy in Jesus Christ, you have invited us to partner with you to continue designing your world to become heaven on earth.
God of Creation, as your co-creators, we have often failed to fulfill our responsibilities. Forgive us for damaging your world and all the living creatures in it. Forgive us when we become so accustomed to hurting and devouring the living creatures of the air, the sea and the land that we are now so accustomed to hurting each other on this mountain that we yearn to catch a glimpse of the peaceable kingdom.
Lord, when did we come to think that white is more like you when you painted all the colors of the rainbow? Lord, when did we come to think that black is bad when it is you who made the nighttime so that we may rest from the day? Lord, when did we come to think that some people are stereotyped to be workers and never trusted to become bosses? Lord, when did we come to think that blaming Asians and Asian Americans for the coronavirus pandemic as a political diversion is okay? Lord, when did we come to think that brown bodies, yellow bodies, black bodies and poor bodies are nobody? Lord, when did we think that it’s okay for the police to brutalize and denigrate Black Americans because of racism that denies your own creation made in your own image? O God, have mercy on us and forgive us for our sins of racial hate when we choose not to recognize your children made in your own likeness.
But Lord, we must not only be content that perhaps our own individual souls are now blessed with a clean heart having been forgiven. Just as we are interrelated in creation, we are interrelated in the systems and structures that we have created. As American Baptists, we too have built systems and structures that may have caused some to benefit more than others, some to have been left out, some who should have been recognized for their abilities and accomplishments but passed over because of their race, ethnicity, culture, gender or orientation. Lord, call us to become transparent and honest in who we are and what we have become so that systemic and structural racism can be revealed, understood and eliminated. For us to truly become the beloved community where everyone has a place at the banquet table by implementing new policies and guidelines, we would only be having a pleasant dream that may never come true.
God of Creation, we pray today because we have come to realize that we are still coming up short of what you have designed us to be. We pray that we have the courage to see in one another the magnificent beauty of each person. Help us to see the divinity in one another so that no one would ever feel that they are a nobody when you have made all of us somebody. Lead us to join hands to become strong and persistent to purge racism, xenophobia, prejudice and discrimination from our world as we begin with our own family as American Baptists. Guide us to fight for what is right against what is wrong. Inspire us to work for justice as long as it will take. And from my childhood home of Roxbury in Boston where I went to segregated schools to San Francisco where I now live, the Golden Gate Bridge symbolizes for us that it is Christ who have bridged and unified us coast to coast today. We pray for racial justice, the end of racial violence and the conviction to be God’s holy people.
We pray in the name of Jesus the Christ, our Savior who reconciled Jews and Gentiles, who brought down the mighty and raised up the lowly, who revealed that heaven can indeed be on earth. Amen.