Tomorrow will be the last day of my leadership training with the Foundations of Christian Leadership program and I am grateful for the numerous opportunities to assess, reflect upon and discuss this unique and special ministry that I have been entrusted with.  My colleagues have truly been gifts and I am so grateful for their interest, excitement and support of my ideas about and plans for race.  The sacred space that has been created wherein we have all been able to share our joys and concerns, dreams and nightmares, past and future can only be described as a blessing.  It is because of this week with them, my dear sisters and brothers who are members of the Presbyterian Church USA, United Methodist Church, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, American Baptist Churches, USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Christian Reformed Church in North America and the Reformed Church in America that I will leave with a renewed commitment to this blog, the message of the race-less life and the conviction that compels me to proclaim it.

The race-less life is good news, a part of the good news of the ministry of Jesus Christ.  In Luke 4.18-19, Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  A life lived racially in no way supports this purpose.  As racial beings, we are most often poor in spirit, imprisoned by the social roles of race and its color codes, unable to see ourselves as God sees us, oppressed by the systems of injustice and inequality that we create and support and unable to hear and subsequently believe that there is favor for all of us who believe.

The racialized life is one of battle, both internal wrestling and external struggle.  But, you don’t have to fight anymore for the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and has anointed me to preach the good news of the race-less life.  Jesus has opened my eyes that I might see the self- imposed prison that I was in so that I might rattle the cages of others.  Open your eyes, push the door open and run with me. Spread the good news of the race-less life!