United Nations

Renée Antrosio – March 18, 2025 2 Comments

What is your favorite art museum? We used to steal away to visit Judson and Sharon, leaving the kids with grandparents so we could soak up a few hours at the beautiful Milwaukee Art Museum. That was my favorite (though a Brewers v. Cubs game was a close second!)

In Texas, I appreciate the intimacy of the Museum of the Big Bend, up close with Ecos del Sol: Portraits of Mexican American Heritage and Culture and looking forward to the Standing at the Summit exhibit. 

Last week, I made a quick trip to Nashville, catching up with my daughter at the Frist Art Museum. The entry showcased pieces by local high school students, while Farm to Table Impressionism was coupled with Tennessee Harvest artists. Lovely, interesting. 

But the exhibit that really challenged me was by Haitian American artists M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William: What the Body Carries. The figurative paintings, collages, and sculptures invited me into the interactive map and brief history of Haiti whose fight for freedom from France, begun in 1791, is intertwined with our own emerging independence and the Louisiana Purchase. My education about Haiti might have ended when we left for brunch at a nearby cafe- until the agenda for the upcoming United Nations Session came across my desk on Thursday, courtesy of our adjunct pastor Jeff Trask. 

The Fourth Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York April 14-17, and Jeff Trask will attend as a representative of FirstRepair and- as always- an ambassador of faith in God’s work of repair of the world through Jesus and through us, the church. The first panel focuses on Reparatory justice for Africa and people of African descent. The closing event marks the bicentennial of France’s imposition of an “independence debt” on Haiti:

In 1825, Haiti was forced into an agreement to pay 150 million gold francs to France to compensate French planters for “lost property” (land and enslaved people), an amount that was well in excess of the planters’ actual financial losses. By 1898, fully half of Haiti’s government budget went to paying France and the French banks. By 1914, that proportion climbed to 80 percent.

What a juxtaposition to our own stories of independence, war, and abolition. Our country’s interactions with Haiti are also problematic, and the difficulties are complex. Too much for me, as an individual, to absorb or impact with my own actions. So when I listened to Friday’s scripture meditation on Pray as You Go, I felt surprisingly prompted to consider it as a collective, rather than the individual application usually preached.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and go. First make things right with your brother or sister and then come back and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24 (CEB)

How do we hear this differently if we consider our African-American brothers and sisters, or our Haitian brothers and sisters? Might Jesus say that we have a responsibility to go to them and work to make things right first, before we return to the altar to offer our gift? Should my contributions to Reparations come before my tithes, not afterward? Jesus’ concluding advice never made much sense to me in our judicial system, but it sounds different on a collective or spiritual scale. 

Be sure to make friends quickly with your opponents while you are with them on the way to court. Otherwise, they will haul you before the judge, the judge will turn you over to the officer of the court, and you will be thrown into prison. I say to you in all seriousness that you won’t get out of there until you’ve paid the very last penny. Matthew 5:25-26 (CEB)

From art museums, to the United Nations, to our wallets, to our spiritual health in the family of God- they are all connected. So, what can we do? 

Individually, we can ask for God’s direction. Who knows where God might lead you? And, as a community, we can anoint Jeff as our emissary to the United Nations. We can pray for his conversations, interactions, and impact. We can send notes of encouragement and blessing. We can contribute financially so that he feels our support of this journey. 

At NCF, we will have a basket for cards and donations to send with Jeff as our blessing. If you would like to participate from afar, you can send a note via mail to Jeff Trask, New Covenant Fellowship, 124 W. White St, Champaign, IL 61820.

When the kids were little, their grandparents gave them T-shirts that said Citizen of the World. As heavenly citizens, adopted into the family of the God who so loved the World that Jesus was sent to reveal that love, may we too show love to our fellow citizens of the world and of heaven. 

-Renée Antrosio, NCF Pastor